Emmanuel Hermellin

GPU Environmental Delegation of Agent Perceptions: Application to Reynolds's Boids

Using Multi-Agent Based Simulation MABS, computing resources requirements often limit the extent to which a model could be experimented with. Regarding this issue, some research works propose to use the General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Processing Units GPGPU technology. GPGPU allows to use the massively parallel architecture of graphic cards to perform general-purpose computing with huge speedups. Still, GPGPU requires the underlying program to be compliant with the specific architecture of GPU devices, which is very constraining. Especially, it turns out that doing MABS using GPGPU is very challenging because converting Agent Based Models ABM accordingly is a very difficult task. In this context, the GPU Environmental Delegation of Agent Perceptions principle has been proposed to ease the use of GPGPU for MABS. This principle consists in making a clear separation between the agent behaviors, managed by the CPU, and environmental dynamics, handled by the GPU. For now, this principle has shown good results, but only on one single case study. In this paper, we further trial this principle by testing its feasibility and genericness on a classic ABM, namely Reynoldss boids. To this end, we first review existing boids implementations to then propose our own benchmark model. The paper then shows that applying GPU delegation not only speeds up boids simulations but also produces an ABM which is easy to understand, thanks to a clear separation of concerns.

Overview of Case Studies on Adapting MABS Models to GPU Programming

General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Units (GPGPU) is today recognized as a practical and efficient way of accelerating software procedures that require a lot of computing resources. However, using this technology in the context of Multi-Agent Based Simulation (MABS) appears to be difficult because GPGPU relies on a very specific programming approach for which MABS models are not naturally adapted. This paper discusses practical results from several works we have done on adapting and developing different MABS models using GPU programming. Especially, studying how GPGPU could be used in the scope of MABS, our main motivation is not only to speed up MABS but also to provide the MABS community with a general approach to GPU programming, which could be used on a wide variety of agent-based models. So, this paper first summarizes all the use cases that we have considered so far and then focuses on identifying which parts of the development process could be generalized.

Defining a Methodology Based on GPU Delegation for Developing MABS Using GPGPU

Multi-Agent Based Simulation (MABS) is used to study complex systems in many research domains. As the number of modeled agents is constantly growing, using General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Units (GPGPU) appears to be very promising as it allows to use the massively parallel architecture of the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) to do High Performance Computing (HPC). However, this technology relies on a highly specialized architecture, implying a very specific programming approach. So, to benefit from GPU power, a MABS model need to be adapted to the GPU programming paradigm.

Expérimentation du principe de délégation GPU pour la simulation multiagent. Les boids de Reynolds comme cas d'étude

General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU) allows to extend the scalability and performances of Multi-Agent Based Simulations (MABS). However, GPGPU requires the underlying program to be compliant with the specific architecture of GPU devices, which is very constraining. In this context, the GPU Environmental Delegation of Agent Perceptions principle has been proposed to ease the use of GPGPU for MABS. The idea is to identify in the model some computations which can be transformed into environmental dynamics and then translated into GPU modules. In this paper, we further trial this principle by testing its feasibility and genericness on a classic ABM, namely Reynoldss boids. The paper then shows that applying GPU delegation not only speeds up boids simulations but also produces an ABM which is easy to understand, thanks to a clear separation of concerns.