N08-116 TITLE: Open Data Distribution Service (DDS) for use in a real time simulation laboratory
environment

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PMA-231; E-2 Hawkeye Early Warning and Control Aircraft; ACAT I

OBJECTIVE: Use Open DDS, consistent with the Object Management Group (OMG) specification, to provide an open architecture solution to interprocess communications between real-time simulation applications and services.

DESCRIPTION: The OMG adopted the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) as a standard means to promote distributed computing. The military and other industries attempted to use CORBA in real time situations and discovered it did not support distributed computing in a real time environment. Other approaches were deployed to support simulations: Distributed Interactive Simulation, High Level Architecture, etc. Over the years, data centric publish and subscribe tools were developed to foster distributed computing in a real time environment. The recent Data Distribution Service specification represents documentation of a standard for those types of products. The goal is to determine if a DDS-like approach could be used within a distributed simulation environment.

PHASE I: Determine the technical feasibility of using an open source DDS implementation in a distributed simulation environment. Define and determine the capabilities of the DDS, specify a Software Developer’s Kit (SDK) for distributed simulation laboratories, identify required testing to validate the SDK, and identify the required maintenance to keep the DDS functioning with evolving technology.

PHASE II: Develop, demonstrate and validate an SDK based on the Phase I design. Test for latency in representative applications. Adapt the SDK for different operating system hosts, and demonstrate a production ready sample, to include a distributed simulation application framework and associated development artifacts, such as UML or Data Flow diagrams.

PHASE III: Integrate the DDS middleware into an existing distributed simulation laboratory environment using the SDK. Develop a production quality, automated tool for generating much of the DDS code from existing C/C++ header files.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: The application of this technology would be applicable to any hardware in the loop simulation laboratory that currently uses HLA and DIS tools. Further, the code generation tool is applicable to any C/C++ application wanting to use the DDS middleware for its interprocess communications.

REFERENCES:
1. "Data Distribution Service for Real-Time Systems Specification" http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?formal/07-01-01.

2. "An open standards approach to real-time COTS-based simulator design", Dr. Rajive Joshi; http://www.embedded.com/columns/technicalinsights/190300032?_requestid=628713.

3. "DDS and Distributed Data-centric Embedded Systems", Stan Schneider;
http://www.ddj.com/embedded/196601852.

KEYWORDS: Data Distribution Service; Distributed Simulation; Open Standards; Real Time Middleware; Data-Centric Publish-Subscribe; Quality of Service (QoS); Data Location Reconstruction Layer (DLRL).

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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