Opportunities and constraints in the use of simulation on low cost ARM-based computers

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Hand, Jon (2014) Opportunities and constraints in the use of simulation on low cost ARM-based computers. In: eSim 2014, Removing the Barriers to Application of Building Performance Simulation in Design Practice, 2014-05-07 - 2014-05-10.

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Abstract

The whole-building simulation community has habitually demanded greater computational resources and developers and researchers have responded with a myriad of approaches to address this demand. However, much of the work of creating and evolving models takes a fraction of the available computational power. This paper considers the deployment of simulation at the other extreme of computational cost e.g. ARM based products such as the Raspberry Pi and the BeagleBone Black. This paper reports on the porting of the ESP-r whole-building suite to ARM. It describes the modifications required to the simulation software as well as to the compilation tool-chain and computing environment to support compilation and deployment. It discusses the performance implications of model complexity and adjustments to methodologies required as well as the user reactions. It also describes how research based on tools such as MATLAB can be hosted on these alternative computer platforms.

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