What's the quickest way to reduce simulation time and cost?

1 Choose the right simulator

There are many different simulators available for robotics, each with its own features, advantages, and limitations. Depending on your goals, needs, and budget, you may want to choose a simulator that suits your specific use case, such as physics-based, sensor-based, or behavior-based simulation. You may also want to consider factors such as compatibility, scalability, realism, and performance when selecting a simulator. Choosing the right simulator can save you time and money by avoiding unnecessary features, errors, or bottlenecks.

2 Simplify your models

One of the main factors that affect simulation time and cost is the complexity of your models. The more details, elements, and interactions you include in your models, the more computational resources and time you will need to run them. Therefore, it is important to simplify your models as much as possible, without losing the essential aspects of your simulation. You can do this by using low-polygon meshes, reducing texture size and quality, removing unnecessary parts or components, and using approximate shapes or geometries instead of exact ones.

3 Parallelize your simulations

Another way to reduce simulation time and cost is to parallelize your simulations, which means running multiple simulations at the same time on different cores, processors, or machines. This can help you speed up your simulation process and increase your productivity, especially if you need to test different parameters, scenarios, or variations of your models. However, parallelizing your simulations also requires careful planning and coordination, as you need to ensure that your simulations are independent, consistent, and synchronized. You also need to consider the trade-off between parallelization and communication overhead, as well as the availability and cost of hardware and software resources.

4 Use cloud-based services

If you don't have enough computing power or storage space to run your simulations locally, you may want to consider using cloud-based services that can provide you with on-demand access to scalable and flexible simulation platforms. Cloud-based services can offer you several benefits, such as lower upfront costs, higher performance, easier collaboration, and better security. However, they also have some drawbacks, such as network latency, data transfer fees, and privacy issues. Therefore, you need to weigh the pros and cons of using cloud-based services for your simulation needs, and compare them with other options, such as dedicated servers or clusters.

5 Validate your results

Finally, one of the most important steps in reducing simulation time and cost is to validate your results, which means checking whether your simulation outputs match your expectations and objectives. Validation can help you verify the accuracy and reliability of your simulation models, algorithms, and scenarios, and identify any errors, discrepancies, or anomalies that may affect your simulation outcomes. Validation can also help you improve your simulation quality and efficiency, as you can use the feedback and insights from your validation process to refine your simulation parameters, assumptions, and methods.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?