Optimica Compiler - Modelica Computational Platform

The OPTIMICA Compiler Toolkit is a Modelica and FMI-based computational platform for systems design. It offers a versatile environment for posing and solving dynamic and steady-state simulation and optimization problems throughout the product development process. The OPTIMICA Compiler Toolkit comes with a Modelica compiler with capabilities beyond dynamic simulation by offering unique features for optimization and steady-state computations.

The OPTIMICA Compiler Toolkit builds on Python and MATLAB® for user-interaction. User-friendly scripting APIs pave the ground for custom workflows to support complex design flows that integrate sequences of computations.

In early stages of the design cycle, steady-state simulation and optimization support architectural exploration and selection. During detailed design, model fidelity is increased and transient simulation and steady-state performance computations are used to refine the design. Dynamic optimization is a valuable tool to assess limits of performance during control systems design and is also a cornerstone in advanced control strategies such as non-linear model predictive control. The OPTIMICA Compiler Toolkit unifies simulation and optimization for transient and steady-state computations throughout the design process.

The OPTIMICA Compiler Toolkit is available for integration in software and custom tool-chains.

The OPTIMICA Compiler Toolkit is based on JModelica.org technology.

To meet the increased need for regulating power in today’s energy market, start-up optimization of thermal power plants is a key industrial need. Model Predictive Control is implemented in the OPTIMICA Compiler Toolkit and successfully applied on both lignite boilers and combined cycle power plants to optimize the start-up process.

The optimization reduces the start-up time without violating the thermal and mechanical stress constraints that govern the lifetime of the boiler’s critical components.

Production planning of district heating system is important as the customer heating demand varies throughout the day, and the production units have different production, start-up, and shut-down costs.

The OPTIMICA Compiler Toolkit is used in conjunction with a mixed-integer linear programming solver to find optimal production schemes of heat and electricity for small to medium sized district heating systems. The optimized schemes demonstrate potential savings while maintaining robustness of heat delivery.

The OPTIMICA Compiler Toolkit is successfully used for vehicle trajectory optimization. By optimizing the vehicle negotiating a maneuver, we can evaluate the results of different actuator options, actuator performance limitations and also environmental parameters (e.g. road friction).

The result of the optimization gives valuable insight into whatactuator choices best fit the desired use case and provides a performance benchmark useful when tuning controllers.