Wolfram Computation Meets Knowledge

Unleash Your Models with SystemModeler 5.1

Explore the contents of this article with a free Wolfram SystemModeler trial. We are excited to announce the latest installment in the Wolfram SystemModeler series, Version 5.1, where our primary focus has been on pushing the scope of use for models of systems beyond the initial stages of development.

Since 2012, SystemModeler has been used in a wide variety of fields with an even larger number of goals—such as optimizing the fuel consumption of a car, finding the optimal dosage of a drug for liver disease and maximizing the lifetime of a battery system. The Version 5.1 update expands SystemModeler beyond its previous usage horizons to include a whole host of options, such as:

  • Exporting models in a form that includes a full simulation engine, which makes them usable in a wide variety of tools
  • Providing the right interface for your models so that they are easy for others to explore and analyze
  • Sharing models with millions of users with the simulation core now included in the Wolfram Language

Wolfram SystemModeler 5.1

Standardized Simulators, Usable Anywhere

With SystemModeler 5, there were two standardized ways of exporting a SystemModeler model: either as Modelica code or using the Functional Mock-up Interface (FMI) for model exchange. In SystemModeler 5.1, we are adding a new, powerful export option, with FMI for co-simulation. While the previous two standards required the importing software to have its own simulation engine, with co-simulation, you are instead exporting a standalone simulator that has the SystemModeler simulation engine built in.

The FMI standard is supported by a wide variety of different tools. This opens up many new use cases, such as:

  • An engineer integrating the model with hardware, for hardware-in-the-loop simulation
  • A game designer using the exported model to drive behaviors in a game engine
  • A project manager using the model as an advanced simulator in e.g. Excel to calculate the return of investment for a power plant

SystemModeler simulate

See how the integration with Excel works in the following video:

Ready Your Models for Exploration, Analysis and Deployment

Whether your models are being simulated by yourself or by others—or whether you are building models for exploration, analysis or deployment—the ability to change or even completely switch configurations in your models is important. It is what allows you to do things like tweak shape parameters to perform optimal cam design, explore fundamental processes in the human body or use different control schemes in a connected system. However, all these possibilities for arranging parameters, variables and configurations can feel daunting.

SystemModeler explore

That is why, with SystemModeler 5.1, we are making it easier to add, document and organize parameters. This makes it possible to quickly set up models that can easily be used, explored and configured by others.

Find out more about the new model development improvements in the following video:

Share Models with Millions of Wolfram Language Users

With SystemModeler 5.1 and Wolfram Language 11.3, the full simulation core of SystemModeler is available to all Wolfram Language users. The system modeling functionality in the Wolfram Language makes it very easy to accomplish tasks such as:

SystemModeler is a great tool to create models of any complexity, and the Wolfram Language is equally great for exploration, analysis and optimization of models. Since this is a natural division of labor, we’ve also made it easy to switch between the two views of models. In fact, SystemModeler and the Wolfram Language use a shared state. When you update a model in one of them, you will see that change directly reflected in the other.

Updated model

SystemModeler users have had a Wolfram Language interface since SystemModeler 3. Based on what we’ve learned from our users since then, we have completely redesigned the system modeling functionality in Wolfram Language 11.3 and SystemModeler 5.1. The functionality has been streamlined, improved and now integrated permanently in the Wolfram Language. This means that you can now share your models with millions of Wolfram Language users whether they have SystemModeler or not.

Share SystemModeler

One potential use of this is creating a virtual lab, where students can try out different hypotheses using interactive interfaces and learn from them. Let’s illustrate this with an example from biology, where the students can explore the spread of genes for sickle cell anemia in a population. Suppose their professor has created the following model:

Input 1

SystemModel["SickleCellAnemia"]

Output 1

The professor can embed the model in a Wolfram Language notebook and then add explanations, questions and interactive interfaces using the Manipulate function. This can then be delivered to students as standalone notebooks with interfaces like this:

With this, students can interact with the simulations to try different scenarios, set up experiments and instantly see if their results match their hypotheses.

We have made a complete version of this virtual lab available. You can download it to test for yourself. You don’t even need a copy of SystemModeler to run it—just the latest version of a desktop Wolfram Language product such as Mathematica 11.3. Of course, you can always download an unrestricted 30-day trial of SystemModeler 5.1 and modify the included models to your own liking, or create your very own models for exploration, teaching or advanced analysis.

For more details on what’s new in Wolfram SystemModeler, visit the What’s New page or see a full list of changes here.

To share your models with other Wolfram Language and SystemModeler users, please join the Wolfram Community.

Introduction to Model Analytics

Comments

Join the discussion

!Please enter your comment (at least 5 characters).

!Please enter your name.

!Please enter a valid email address.

4 comments

  1. When will we be able to use System Modeler in cloud?

    Reply
    • There are some new security concerns we need to solve to make system modeling features available in cloud. We are planning to enable system modeling in the cloud in a future release. We welcome any feedback on any specific cloud features you would want in the system modeling area.

      Reply
  2. Hello SystemModeler-team at Wolfram,
    it’s truly awesome to hear that SystemModeler supports now FMI for co-simulation.
    Are there any experiences if and how well it works together with the dSpace SCALEXIO hardware and ConfigurationDesk for Rapid Control Prototyping and Hardware in the Loop simulators? Are there any plans to support this explictily?

    Reply
    • Hi, Björn. Thanks for your feedback. For the dSPACE product the FMU needs to be cross compiled for that target or exported as a source FMU. This is something that we do not support yet. Today, you can only export FMUs for the platform you are running SystemModeler on which limits it to Win32/Win64/Linux32/Linux64/macOS. However, it is an interesting use case that we want to adress in future releases. If you are interested in giving us more details on your intended use and requirements, that would be useful for our development. Also, please let us know if you would like us to contact you for testing ones we have a pre release available.

      Reply