HLA-Transparent Distributed Simulation of Agent-based Systems

The adoption of the agent-based approach to the modelling and simulation of physical systems has proved to considerably increase the simulation realism and accuracy. Simulation systems of such a kind, however, require computational resources that might become unfeasible when the number of simulated agents scales up. A Distributed Simulation (DS) approach might improve the execution of such systems, particularly in the case of scenarios populated by a large number of agents. Building an agent-based DS system, however, requires both specific expertise and knowledge of distributed simulation standards and a non-negligible amount of effort with respect to conventional local simulation systems. In this book chapter, we introduce a simulation framework named Transparent_DS (TDS), which enables the use of distributed environments while making affordable the development of agent-based simulators. TDS raises developers from the specific issues of the distributed environment. By use of TDS, the simulation agents can be locally developed and tested, and then transparently deployed in a DS environment, bringing significant savings in terms of effort and development time. In addition, TDS provides a uniform interface to the JADE framework, which further facilitates the work of developers of JADE-based Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) in the production of agent-based DS systems. By the TDS approach, any HLAand agent-based distributed simulation system can practically be developed as conventional local MAS, with no extra effort and no extra knowledge. An example development of a simulation system is presented which is a common abstraction in several domains that involve the motion of individuals in a multistorey building to simulate operations in normal or emergency situations.