Distributed airport simulation using CORBA and DIS

Abstract

This paper presents the SEEDS simulation environment for the evaluation of distributed traffic control systems. Starting with an overview of the general simulator architecture, the software modules and the derived hardware architecture of the simulation environment are described with respect to performance requirements. The communication architecture of the SEEDS simulator is based on the CORBA standard and the DIS simulation protocol. With the SEEDS prototype simulating airport ground-traffic, performance measurements evaluating critical design and implementation decisions are described. The main aspects of the performance analysis are the attained application performance using CORBA and DIS as communication middleware, and the scalability of the overall approach. The evaluation shows the appropriateness of the design of the simulation environment and the derived hard- and software architecture, which is flexible and open to further extensions. Moreover the combination of CORBA and DIS provides a suited platform for distributed interactive simulation purposes because of the adequate performance, high scalability, and the high-level programming model which allows to rapidly develop and maintain complex distributed applications with high-performance requirements.