🚀 go-pugleaf

I am currently involved with a project which has a strand which
is investigating qualitative representations of simple but large
electrical circuits. The components and typical complexity are
those to be found in a modern luxury automobile. The complete
circuit is littered with switches and relays whose large number of
configurations can partition the circuit into many 'active' (i.e. current
flowing) states. The circuit can also suffer faults. Proposing
that a point in the circuit becomes grounded, connected to battery
positive, or open-circuited will produce a circuit with new connectivity.

In the simulation of these faults the easiest option is to re-run
the simulation on the entirety of the new circuit. What is as yet
unknown to us is the existence of some incremental method which can
perform the minimum amount of recalculation and still be more
efficient than the simple brute-force approach (i.e. the extra
complexity of finding the minimum sub-circuit changed must result
in an average complexity that is no worse than complete recalculation).

Any pointers to interesting graph-theoretic algorithms (the circuit
can be seen in graph-theoretic terms as a flow digraph) or relevant
application areas (e.g. pcb testing, other work in vehtronics,
aerospace &c.) would be of great interest. I would be happy to summarise
replies to the groups above.

Best Regards,

Chris Orgill,				tel +44 970 622447
Research Associate,
Computer Science Department,		 cho%cs.aber.ac.uk@uunet.uu.net (ARPA)
University College of Wales,		 cho@uk.ac.aber.cs (JANET)
Aberystwyth, Dyfed, United Kingdom. SY23 3BZ.

---