Moving Multiscale Modelling to the Edge: Benchmarking and Load Optimization for Cellular Automata on Low Power Microcomputers

Numerical computations are usually associated with the High Performance Computing. Nevertheless, both industry and science tend to involve devices with lower power in computations. This is especially true when the data collecting devices are able to partially process them at place, thus increasing the system reliability. This paradigm is known as Edge Computing. In this paper, we propose the use of devices at the edge, with lower computing power, for multi-scale modelling calculations. A system was created, consisting of a high-power device-a two-processor workstation, 8 RaspberryPi 4B microcomputers and 8 NVidia Jetson Nano units, equipped with GPU processor. As a part of this research, benchmarking was performed, on the basis of which the computational capabilities of the devices were classified. Two parameters were considered: the number and performance of computing units (CPUs and GPUs) and the energy consumption of the loaded machines. Then, using the calculated weak scalability and energy consumption, a min-max-based load optimization algorithm was proposed. The system was tested in laboratory conditions, giving similar computation time with same power consumption for 24 physical workstation cores vs. 8x RaspberryPi 4B and 8x Jetson Nano. The work ends with a proposal to use this solution in industrial processes on example of hot rolling of flat products.