Modeling and Simulation

Modeling and Simulation

In his popular Sci-Fi book series "Foundation," Isaac Asimov described modeling and simulation as the simplification of a phenomenon to such a degree that only the characteristics that are essential to understand it. Further than science fiction, Modeling and Simulation (M&S) became a solid interdisciplinary scientific and engineering endeavor including many subfields such as discrete event simulation, continuous simulation, distributed simulation, and parallel simulation (Topçu & Oğuztüzün, Guide to Distributed Simulation with HLA, 2017). In our research, we mainly focus on Distributed Simulation (DS).

Faculty Members:

Okan Topçu 

Halit Oğuztüzün (Ankara Campus)

Related Projects:

Distributed Simulation: High Level Architecture (HLA): "Often, the subject reality (simuland) inherently involves multiple interacting entities. Imagine a fleet of drones flying in formation. We can of course have one monolithic simulation model including all the drones and their interactions with each other and with the physical environment. An alternative might be to have individual models of each drone and the environment, and let these models interact with each other via a well-defined and agreed-upon interface. The second approach might be preferable for several reasons. First, the load of simulation can be shared by multiple processors. These processors can be distributed over a network or can be housed on a single host computer. Roughly speaking, the latter leads to parallel simulation, while the former leads to distributed simulation" (Topçu & Oğuztüzün, Guide to Distributed Simulation with HLA, 2017). Please, see the following particular projects, which are all related with distributed simulation.

RTI Abstraction Component for MS.NET (RACoN): RACoN is an open-source library, which is fundamentally a .NET wrapper for High Level Architecture runtime infrastructure (RTI) application programmer's interface (API). This library is used by simulation researchers, students, and engineers.

Simulation Generator (SimGe): SimGe is a fully-dressed High Level Architecture (HLA) object model editor, simulation design and development environment, and a code generator that is intended to generate code automatically for HLA based distributed simulations. It is a  freeware that is intended for simulation researchers and students.

Maritime Simulation (MariSim): MariSim is an ensemble of simulation applications specifically related to Navy and Maritime domain. MariSim consists of the following simulation environments.

• NSTMSS
• Navigation Safety
• Strait Traffic Monitoring Simulation (STMS)
• Maritime Border Surveillance Using Unmanned Surface Vehicles

 

Simulation Environments: Some example simulation environments are provided for distributed simulation, specifically High Level Architecture (HLA).

Federation Architecture Metamodel (FAMM): FAMM is a metamodel for describing the architecture of a High Level Architecture (HLA) compliant federation. A salient feature of the Federation Architecture Metamodel (FAMM) is the behavioral description of federates based on live sequence charts (LSCs). FAMM formalizes the standard HLA Object Model and Federate Interface Specification.

Related Publications:

Books

Guide to Distributed Simulation with HLA (Springer, Amazon)

 

 

Distributed Simulation: A Model Driven Engineering Approach (Springer, Amazon)

 

 

Other (Selected) Publications

Topçu, Okan and Levent Yılmaz. "Rapid Prototyping of Cognitive Agent Simulations Using C-BML Transformations", SAGE Journal of Defence Modeling and Simulation: Applications, Methodology, Technology (JDMS), accepted, 2019.

Topçu, Okan. "Using Situational Awareness for Adaptive Decision Making in Agent-Based Simulation", Winter Simulation Conference (WSC 2017), DOI: 10.1109/WSC.2017.8247873, ISBN: 978-1-5386-3428-8, pp. 1276-1287. IEEE Press, Las Vegas, NV, December 03-06, 2017.

Topçu, Okan. "Adaptive Decision-Making in Agent-based Simulation", Journal of Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International, vol.90, issue 7, pp. 815-832, DOI: 10.1177/0037549714536930, ISSN: 0037-5497, July 2014.

Topçu, Okan, and Halit Oğuztüzün. "Layered Simulation Architecture: A Practical Approach", Elsevier Simulation Modeling Practice and Theory (SIMPAT) Journal, vol. 32, pp. 1-14, DOI: 10.1016/j.simpat.2012.11.001, ISSN: 1569-190X, March, 2013.

Adak, Mehmet, Okan Topçu, and Halit Oğuztüzün. "Model-based Code Generation for HLA Federates", Wiley Interscience Software: Practice and Experience (SPE) Journal, vol. 40, no.2, pp. 149-175, DOI: 10.1002/spe.949, ISSN: 0038-0644, February 2010.

Topçu, Okan, Mehmet Adak, and Halit Oğuztüzün. "Metamodeling Live Sequence Charts for Code Generation", Springer Software and Systems Modeling (SoSym) Journal, vol. 8, no.4, pp. 567-583, DOI: 10.1007/s10270-009-0113-8, ISSN: 1619-1366 (print version), September 2009.

Topçu, Okan, Mehmet Adak, and Halit Oğuztüzün. "A Metamodel for Federation Architectures", ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation (TOMACS), vol.18, issue 3, article no. 10, pp.10:1-10:29, DOI:10.1145/1371574.1371576, ISSN: 1049-3301, July 2008.

Topçu, Okan and Halit Oğuztüzün. "Developing an HLA Based Naval Maneuvering Simulation", Wiley Interscience Naval Engineers Journal (NEJ) by American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE), vol.117, no.1, pp. 23-40, DOI: 10.1111/j.1559-3584.2005.tb00319.x, ISSN: 0028-1425, January 2005.

References:

Topçu, Okan, and Halit Oğuztüzün. "Guide to Distributed Simulation with HLA", Springer Series in Simulation Foundations, Methods, and Applications Series, Springer International Publishing, eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-61267-6, Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-61266-9, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-61267-6, 327 pages, Cham, Zug, Switzerland, August 23, 2017.