Integrating Publish-Subscribe and Peer-to-Peer Communication for Modeling & Simulation of Moving Entities

The representation of spatially moving entities is commonly achieved using publish/subscribe communication (PSC) supported by some frameworks, like the High Level Architecture (HLA). PSC, however, can become complex and inefficient since it requires the definition of regions of interest and/or it generates false positive messages that need to be filtered and discarded, impacting negatively simulation performance. On the other hand, conventional static peer-to-peer communication (P2PC), though usually more efficient, does not have the required flexibility to represent mobile entities. In this paper we present the integration of PSC and P2PC styles under the hierarchical and modular dynamic topology paradigm supported by the Hybrid Flow System Specification (HFSS) formalism. This unification is achieved using runtime topology adaptation involving the dynamic creation/deletion of links in order to capture the current interactions between entities. The proposed architecture combines the advantages of PSC and P2PC, enabling a flexible simulation framework. Two types of PSC are described: the traditional push style, based on discrete events, and a novel pull style based on sampling. The benefits of this approach are demonstrated through the modeling of an air-defense scenario that is described in the JUSE-HFSS modeling and simulation framework, an implementation of the HFSS formalism.