Using Serde to Serialize and Deserialize DIS PDUs

Serialization is the process of translating a data structure into a format that can be stored and/or transmitted, and then subsequently reconstructed at a later time to create an identical clone of the original. The use of data serialization assures data objects can be transmitted, stored, and reliably reconstructed across differing computer architectures, even with different data type sizes or endianness, with no additional effort.Serializing the data in an architecture-independent format prevents the problems of byte ordering, memory layout, or representing data structures in different programming languages. This is especially important in the context of live, virtual, and constructive (LVC) simulation environments where multiple geographically separated computers, each with many independent threads, are connected and must communicate with as little latency as possible to remain near "real-time" like in terms of responsiveness.In this paper, we demonstrate the use of Serde, a Rust-based systems programming language crate, to serialize and deserialize IEEE standard Distribute Interactive Simulation (DIS) Protocol Data Units (PDUs) to support DIS-based network interoperability. The results show that Serde is an efficient mechanism for serialization/deserialization when using the inherently safe Rust programming language.