A Formal Simulation Model for Discrete Rate Simulation

Simulation is an essential tool for virtualizing systems by creating a representative model of real or hypothetical systems and observing how they change over time. Two predominant simulation paradigms include Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and Continuous Simulation, which both have their strengths and weaknesses. DES does not handle continuous state variables, while continuous simulation handles continuous state variables but encounters errors where these variables have discrete changes in their behavior. This difficulty between the two predominant simulation paradigms prompted the creation of a new simulation paradigm to cover this gap: Discrete Rate Simulation (DRS). DRS as a simulation paradigm focuses on simulating continuous state variables but with a focus on an event-driven environment to observe key events, which is not a feature inherently built into Continuous Simulation. DRS has been incorporated in some pieces of academic research and included in commercial software applications, but a formal simulation model for DRS for the academic community has not been presented. This paper seeks to introduce a formal simulation model for DRS by presenting a novel approach for simulating Discrete Rate State Variables.