Experimentation methods Clause Samples

Experimentation methods. As can be seen in Figure 11, the primary distinction of the experimentation methods compared to the “working theory development methods” outlined above is that experimentation (in our definition) occurs on the FLAME platform deployed in a city. On the other hand, experimentation involves no human end users (as distinct to “trials”). As already stated, it is not clear at this stage what experimentation, if any, can actually be done in the FLAME project as the focus in FLAME is very much on user trials. Experimentation would begin with a formally released version of the FLAME platform which has already passed unit tests, contract, integration and end-to-end tests all performed on FLAME’s integration and qualification infrastructure (separate from the city infrastructure). Experimentation would be performed before trials to gain an understanding of the performance of the system and how it behaves under different conditions. The experiments should help in defining the control policies which are required to ensure the system reacts appropriately to differing demands. In this way, experimentation reduces the risk of trials: testing aspects before the expense of coordinating real end users in a live trial. Experiments should be repeatable: a defined set of test conditions should result in a consistent outcome (accepting certain well-defined but stochastic behaviour). This is distinct from trials where users will inevitably behave unpredictably. Should any experimentation be performed, an outline of some of the tools we expect to be useful follows.