Simulation Controllers

The Brain Scaffold Builder (BSB) allows you to define and trigger actions at specific checkpoints during a simulation. This is useful for tasks such as resetting values, saving data, or updating a component’s state. You can apply this feature to any SimulationComponent (including cell_model, connection_model and device) by implementing the “controller” interface.

A controller is a component that must implement two primary methods:

• get_next_checkpoint(): This method returns a float representing the time of the next checkpoint. The simulation adapter calls this to determine when the simulation will pause next to run a checkpoint.

• run_checkpoint(): This method contains the logic for the action to be performed when the checkpoint is reached.

Example: A simple controlling Device

This example demonstrates how to extend a device named MyDevice to act as a controller. This controller updates the status attribute and outputs its value at every fixed time step.

@config.node
class MyDevice:
    step = config.attr(type=float, required=True)

    def __init__(self):
        self.status = 0

    def get_next_checkpoint(self):
    # Here insert the logic to determine the timing of your next checkpoint
        return self.status + self.step

    def run_checkpoint(self):
    # The checkpoint is reached, execute all the desired actions
        self.status += self.step
        print("Checkpoint reached!", self.status)