Simulation: The fusion of Information Technology with Physical Science and Engineering
What is a simulation?
What comes into our minds when we think of building our own world with just a computer? Is it Metaverse? Is it a website? I am thinking of simulation. I hope you have thought the same.
Here is the story of how this began. In the 60’s during the expedition project to space, NASA in collaboration with the United States Airforce understood that the computer is the only tool which seems to perform complicated computations especially with problems like predicting the path of trajectory and the influence of materials in these conditions.
Consider this, you are in the year 1960 where computer technology was in its toddler stages with a memory of 32 Kilo Bytes and the concept of GUI was nonexistent. Also, consider this that transducers or sensors were operated mechanically which gives the least precise and accurate outputs. Although the transistor technology has been discovered, it wasn’t integrated. Also, considering the room for error was very little. The last option was to perform computations that are quick, accurate and precise. This provided the scientists and engineers an idea of what the journey in the uncharted space would look like. This played a key role in the moon landing.
What was the outcome you ask? The advancement of semiconductor technology resulting in the wider implementation of supercomputer technology which played a very the scientific research. This was where the birth of electronic sensor technology took place.
How does a simulation work?
The first time it was used for civil applications was for weather forecasting in which sensors were placed in satellites which were launched into space to study the temperature, pressure and chemical composition of the atmosphere while orbiting around the earth’s axis. Air balloons were also used to monitor temperatures close to the lithosphere. This has led to extensive data acquisition that was transmitted to servers that connected to the computer on earth. This data acts as a fundamental building block to a simulation was transformed into information by the use of equations that described the function of the these datapoints. Here the datapoints where the values of temperature, pressure, prescence of gas etc. These calculations were in the form of arrays which required high computation power which utilised supercomputers whose data processing rate is in TERAFLOPS which is significantly higher than a gaming/profession computer. Extrapolating this data into the unknown future which enabled them to predict the weather patterns for a year.
What is simulation look like today ? What role does it play in Vocational training?
With advent of gaming, the standards for graphics have evolved from 2D to 3D. This has led to innovations like Car and Flight simulators which are used by professional race drivers and pilots who are undergoing their training.
Now that Virtual Reality and Augmented reality have trickled down to civilian and commercial applications. This has ranged from entertainment e.g Occulus Quest which are now able to play games like Batman VR and Skyrim VR to games like virtual doctor.
This would soon play a crucial in future engineering and technical projects as the demand for complex projects pertaining to energy and aerospace is said to increase such that the skill sets required to solve these problems will increase the benchmark for skill requirements.
Conclusion
Simulation is the science of imitating real life systems. In order to build a successful simulation, one must be familiar with basics of Information Technology and any physical science branch which requires the knowledge of Mechanical and Electrical engineering. A lot of simulations are built on the integrated sensor technology in any given system which also emphasis the fact that for every problem.
While graphics processing capabilities have improved considerably which are now being used in mining cryptocurrency and capable of generating images beyond our imaginations in a click of button. It won’t be able to substitute prototyping as simulation won’t account for anomalies in a given scenario.