A Comparison of CMB- and HLA-Based Approaches to Type I Interoperability Reference Model Problems for COTS-Based Distributed Simulation

Abstract

Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) simulation packages (CSPs) are software used by many simulation modelers to build and experiment with models of various systems in domains such as manufacturing, health, logistics, and commerce. As part of an ongoing standardization effort, this article introduces the COTS Simulation Package Emulator (CSPE), a proposed benchmark that can be used to investigate asynchronous entity-passing problems as described by the Type I interoperability reference model for COTS-based distributed simulation. To demonstrate its use, two approaches to this form of interoperability are discussed: an implementation based on the Chandy-Misra-Bryant (CMB) conservative algorithm and an implementation based on the High Level Architecture (HLA) Time Advance Request (TAR). It is shown the HLA approach outperforms the CMB approach in almost all cases. The article concludes that the CSPE benchmark is a valid basis from which the most efficient approach to Type I interoperability problems for COTS-based distributed simulation can be discovered.

Keywords

Discrete event simulation distributed simulation HLA benchmark standards

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