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Simulation is used in many contexts, including the modeling of natural systems, and human systems to gain insight into the operation of those systems; and simulation in technology and safety engineering where the goal is to test some real-world practical scenario. Simulation, using a simulator or otherwise experimenting with a fictitious situation can show the eventual real effects of some possible conditions.
Physical simulation refers to simulation in which physical objects are substituted for the real thing, these physical objects are often chosen because they are smaller or cheaper, than the actual object or system.
Interactive simulation, which is a special kind of physical simulation, and often referred to as human in the loop simulations, are physical simulations that include humans, such as the model used in a flight simulator.
Simulation is often used in the training of civilian and military personnel. This usually occurs when it is prohibitively expensive or simply too dangerous to allow trainees to use the real equipment in the real world. In such situations they will spend time learning valuable lessons in a "safe" virtual environment. Often the convenience is to permit mistakes during training for a safety-critical system.
Training simulations typically come in one of three categories:
Main article: Flight simulator
A flight simulator is used to train pilots on the ground. It permits a pilot to crash his simulated "aircraft" without being hurt. Flight simulators are often used to train pilots to operate aircraft in extremely hazardous situations, such as landings with no engines, or complete electrical or hydraulic failures. The simulator is normally cheaper to operate than a real trainer aircraft.
Simulation is an important feature when engineering systems. For example in electrical engineering, delay lines may be used to simulate propagation delay and phase shift caused by an actual transmission line. Similarly, dummy loads may be used to simulate impedance without simulating propagation, and is used in situations where propagation is unwanted. A simulator may imitate only a few of the operations and functions of the unit it simulates. Contrast with: emulate.
Source: Federal Standard 1037CFederal Standard 1037C entitled Telecommunications: Glossary of Telecommunication Terms is a U. Federal Standard, issued by the General Services Administration pursuant to the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, as amended. This docu
Main article: Computer simulationA computer simulation or a computer model is a computer program which attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system. Computer simulations have become a useful part of modeling many natural systems in physics, chemistry and biology, human s
Related article: Model
Computer simulation, has become a useful part of modelModel may refer to more than one thing: For models in society, art, fashion, and cosmetics, see; role model model (person supermodel In science and technology, a model (abstract is understood as an abstract or theoretical representation of a phenomenon,seing many natural systems in physicsPhysics (from the Greek, physikos , "natural", and physis , "Nature") is the science of Nature in the broadest sense. Physicists study the behavior and properties of matter in a wide variety of contexts, ranging from the sub-microscopic particles from whi, chemistryChemistry is the science of matter and its interactions with energy (see physics, biology). Because of the diversity of matter (which is mostly atomic), Chemists are often engaged in the pursuit of studying how atoms interact to form molecules, and how mo and biologyBiology studies the variety of life clockwise from top-left E. coli tree fern, gazelle, Goliath beetle Biology is the science of life. It is concerned with the characteristics and behaviors of organisms, how species and individuals come into existence, an, and human systems in economicsEconomics is the social science studying how society uses its limited resources to meet desires and wants. Put otherwise, economics studies what, how and for whom society produces. This involves analyzing the production, distribution and consumption of go and social science (the computational sociology) as well as in engineering to gain insight into the operation of those systems. In such simulations the model behaviour will change according to a set of initial parameters such as a meteorological model. Computer simulations are often considered human out of the loop simulations.
Traditionally, the formal modeling of systems has been via a mathematical model, which attempts to find analytical solution s to problems which enables the prediction of the behaviour of the system from a set of parameters and initial conditions. Computer simulation is often used an adjunct to, or substitution for, modeling systems for which simple closed form analytic solutions are not possible. There are many different types of computer simulation, the common feature they all share is the attempt to generate a sample of representative scenarios for a model in which a complete enumeration of all possible states of the model would be prohibitive or impossible.
It is increasingly common to hear simulations of many kinds referred to as "synthetic environments". This label has been adopted to broaden the definition of "simulation" to encompass virtually any computer-based representation.