Thesis (M.S. in Operations Research) Naval Postgraduate School, June 1997. / Thesis advisor, Arnold Buss. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115). Also available online.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / In recent years the extension of interactive simulation technology to involve simulators and live vehicles from geographically dispersed sites has produced a demand for high-bandwidth communication networks that can provide guaranteed quality of service (e.g., insured availability of bandwidth and upper bounds on end-to-end delay). This paper reviews the requirements distributed interactive simulation places on the communications infrastructure and describes the Defense Simulation Internet (DSI), a network developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency to support distributed interactive simulations. Key features of the DSI are: more than 120 participating sites spanning Europe, the United States and Asia; use of a resource reservation mechanism to provide guaranteed quality of service; and support for communication between classified sites. Furthermore, the paper describes the internetworking protocols used in the DSI to provide guaranteed quality of service and to support transmission of classified communications. Other topics discussed in the paper are research efforts that anticipate increased load on the DSI and the relevance of the technology to the integration of the telemetry range and distributed interactive simulations.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / The Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) concept, since its inception, has been defined into three separate but distinct areas of service. • Viewing of data in the real-time environment. • Multiple range viewing and usage of"real-time data." • Problems with the sharing of information through DIS. This paper will discuss the DIS concept and some of the various methods available to display this data to users of the system.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 27-30, 1997 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The U.S. Air Force has developed GPS-based instrumentation systems to support both test and training activities. In support of recent large-scale exercises, interfaces were developed to employ existing test and training assets in a synthetic battlefield. The writers propose exploration of similar approaches to overcome the challenge of developing a common approach to test and training instrumentation.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper discusses Global Positioning System (GPS) Range Applications Joint Program Office (RAJPO) efforts to foster interoperability between airborne instrumentation, virtual simulators, and constructive simulations using Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS). In the past, the testing and training communities developed separate airborne instrumentation systems primarily because available technology couldn't encompass both communities' requirements. As budgets get smaller, as requirements merge, and as technology advances, the separate systems can be used interoperably and possibly merged to meet common requirements. Using DIS to bridge the gap between the RAJPO test instrumentation system and the Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation (ACMI) training systems provides a defacto system-level interoperable interface while giving both communities the added benefits of interaction with the modeling and simulation world. The RAJPO leads the test community in using DIS. RAJPO instrumentation has already supported training exercises such as Roving Sands 95, Warfighter 95, and Combat Synthetic Test, Training, and Assessment Range (STTAR) and major tests such as the Joint Advanced Distributed Simulation (JADS) Joint Test and Evaluation (JT&E) program. Future efforts may include support of Warrior Flag 97 and upgrading the Nellis No-Drop Bomb Scoring Ranges. These exercises, combining the use of DIS and RAJPO instrumentation to date, demonstrate how a single airborne system can be used successfully to support both test and training requirements. The Air Combat Training System (ACTS) Program plans to build interoperability through DIS into existing and future ACMI systems. The RAJPO is committed to fostering interoperable airborne instrumentation systems as well as interfaces to virtual and constructive systems in the modeling and simulation world. This interoperability will provide a highly realistic combat training and test synthetic environment enhancing the military's ability to train its warfighters and test its advanced weapon systems.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 30-November 02, 1995 / Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada / GPS user equipment has matured and is now available to support the use of live players in integrated ranges and simulations. P-code GPS provides true WGS-84 based coordinate information anywhere in the world at any time and to accuracies at the 5 ft (1s) level (demonstrated in high dynamic aircraft using differential P-code GPS). C/A code GPS shows lower accuracy and is especially vulnerable to multipath degradation over water. In supporting networked ranges with simulations, GPS is directly applicable to the dead reckoning requirements of the Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) community. DIS dead reckoning provides the capability of much reduced data rates in recovering TSPI information from platforms. The on-board state vector for an integrated GPS/Inertial Reference Unit provides accurate position, velocity and acceleration as well as attitude and attitude rate information so that dead reckoning thresholds can be both position and attitude driven. A simplified analysis is presented in the paper to derive dead reckoning update rates from the G loading levels of various player dynamics. Also, information is provided which results in word length requirements for GPS-based state vector information for transmission over minimum word length DIS Field Instrumentation Protocol Data Units (PDUs, which are the data block formats). The coordinate frame problem in use of GPS-based state vector information from fixed ranges is also addressed, showing that the use of a local geodetic frame is preferable to the use of an earth centered earth fixed frame, in that it is more efficient of network PDU word length.

Requirements engineers have to elicit, document, and validate how stakeholders act and interact to achieve their common goals in collaborative scenarios. Only after gathering all information concerning who interacts with whom to do what and why, can a software system be designed and realized which supports the stakeholders to do their work. To capture and structure requirements of different (groups of) stakeholders, scenario-based approaches have been widely used and investigated. Still, the elicitation and validation of requirements covering collaborative scenarios remains complicated, since the required information is highly intertwined, fragmented, and distributed over several stakeholders. Hence, it can only be elicited and validated collaboratively. In times of globally distributed companies, scheduling and conducting workshops with groups of stakeholders is usually not feasible due to budget and time constraints. Talking to individual stakeholders, on the other hand, is feasible but leads to fragmented and incomplete stakeholder scenarios. Going back and forth between different individual stakeholders to resolve this fragmentation and explore uncovered alternatives is an error-prone, time-consuming, and expensive task for the requirements engineers. While formal modeling methods can be employed to automatically check and ensure consistency of stakeholder scenarios, such methods introduce additional overhead since their formal notations have to be explained in each interaction between stakeholders and requirements engineers. Tangible prototypes as they are used in other disciplines such as design, on the other hand, allow designers to feasibly validate and iterate concepts and requirements with stakeholders. This thesis proposes a model-based approach for prototyping formal behavioral specifications of stakeholders who are involved in collaborative scenarios. By simulating and animating such specifications in a remote domain-specific visualization, stakeholders can experience and validate the scenarios captured so far, i.e., how other stakeholders act and react. This interactive scenario simulation is referred to as a model-based virtual prototype. Moreover, through observing how stakeholders interact with a virtual prototype of their collaborative scenarios, formal behavioral specifications can be automatically derived which complete the otherwise fragmented scenarios. This, in turn, enables requirements engineers to elicit and validate collaborative scenarios in individual stakeholder sessions – decoupled, since stakeholders can participate remotely and are not forced to be available for a joint session at the same time. This thesis discusses and evaluates the feasibility, understandability, and modifiability of model-based virtual prototypes. Similarly to how physical prototypes are perceived, the presented approach brings behavioral models closer to being tangible for stakeholders and, moreover, combines the advantages of joint stakeholder sessions and decoupled sessions. / Anforderungsingenieure erheben, dokumentieren und validieren wie Bedarfsträger in einzelnen und gemeinsamen Aktivitäten die Ziele ihrer kollaborativen Szenarios erreichen. Auf Grundlage von Angaben darüber, wer warum mit wem zusammen was erledigt, kann anschließend ein Softwaresystem spezifiziert und umgesetzt werden, welches die Bedarfsträger bei der Durchführung ihrer Abläufe unterstützt. Um Anforderungen verschiedener (Gruppen von) Bedarfsträger zu erfassen und zu strukturieren, werden szenariobasierte Ansätze genutzt und erforscht. Die Erhebung und Validierung von Anforderungen, die kollaborative Szenarios abdecken, ist dennoch kompliziert, da derartige Informationen hochgradig verknüpft, fragmentiert und über mehrere Bedarfsträger verteilt sind, wodurch sie nur in Gruppensitzungen effizient erhoben und validiert werden können. In Zeiten global verteilter Firmen ist die Planung und Durchführung solcher Workshops mit Gruppen von Bedarfsträgern nur selten praktikabel. Mit einzelnen Bedarfsträgern zu sprechen ist hingegen oft realisierbar, führt aber zu fragmentierten, unvollständigen Szenariobeschreibungen. Durch eine Vielzahl von Einzelgesprächen mit wechselnden Bedarfsträgern kann diese Fragmentierung aufgelöst werden – dies ist aber eine fehleranfällige und zeitaufwändige Aufgabe. Zwar bieten formale Modellierungsmethoden z.B. automatische Konsistenzchecks für Szenarios, doch führen derartige Methoden zu Mehraufwand in allen Gesprächen mit Bedarfsträgern, da diesen die verwendeten formalen Notationen jedes Mal erläutert werden müssen. Handfeste Prototypen, wie sie in anderen Disziplinen eingesetzt werden, ermöglichen es Designern, ihre Konzepte und erhobenen Anforderungen ohne viel Aufwand mit Bedarfsträgern zu validieren und zu iterieren. In dieser Dissertation wird ein modellbasierter Generierungsansatz vorgeschlagen, der kollaborative Szenarios prototypisch auf Grundlage von formalen Verhaltensmodellen für die beteiligten Bedarfsträger darstellt. Durch die Simulation dieses Verhaltens und dessen Animation innerhalb einer webbasierten, domänenspezifischen Visualisierung, können Bedarfsträger diese Modelle erleben und die bisher erfassten Szenarios validieren. Eine derartige interaktive Szenariosimulation wird als modellbasierter virtueller Prototyp bezeichnet. Basierend auf den Interaktionen zwischen Bedarfsträgern und einem virtuellen Prototypen ihrer Szenarios können zudem formale Verhaltensspezifikationen automatisch abgeleitet werden, die wiederum die fragmentierten kollaborativen Szenarios vervollständigen. Dies ermöglicht es den Anforderungsingenieuren, die kollaborativen Szenarios in individuellen Sitzungen mit einzelnen Bedarfsträgern zu erheben und zu validieren – entkoppelt voneinander, da Bedarfsträger webbasiert teilnehmen können und dabei nicht darauf angewiesen sind, dass andere Bedarfsträger ebenfalls in der gleichen Sitzung teilnehmen. Diese Dissertation diskutiert und evaluiert die Machbarkeit, Verständlichkeit sowie die Änderbarkeit der modellbasierten virtuellen Prototypen. Auf die gleiche Art wie physikalische Prototypen wahrgenommen werden, erlaubt es der vorgestellte Ansatz, Verhaltensmodelle für Bedarfsträger erlebbar zu machen und so die Vorteile von Gruppensitzungen mit denen entkoppelter Sitzungen zu verbinden.

Ao longo dos anos houve um aumento considerável da complexidade das simulações o que tem motivado intensa pesquisa com o intuito de possibilitar uma analise mais adequada e efetiva dos dados gerados pelas mesmas. A elaboração de modelos bem como sua verificação e validação também são alvos passíveis de aprimoramento, podendo levar ao desenvolvimento de uma serie de recursos que podem revolucionar a atividade de simulação em pouco tempo. Há também uma tendência de use crescente de representações gráficas bem como de animações na simulação, respaldada pelo maior poder de processamento alcançado pelas estações de trabalho recentemente. A presente dissertação consistiu no projeto e implementação de um ambiente de simulação visual interativa chamado VISE (de Visual Interactive Simulation Environment). Este ambiente utilizou a linguagem SIMSCRIPT como ferramenta de modelagem e oferece uma serie de recursos de interação, controle e visualização com o intuito de facilitar e potencializar a atividade de simulação. / Recent years have seen a considerable increase on the complexity of simulations. This growing complexity is the motivation for an intense research on more adequate and effective tools for the analysis of data generated by simulations. The activities of building, verifying, and validating simulation models are also important targets of improvement, leading to the development of various facilities that may cause a revolution in the simulation field in very short time. There is also a trend towards the increasing use of graphical representations and animations in simulation, motivated and supported by the higher processing capabilities of present workstations. The present work consisted in the specification, design and implementation of a visual interactive simulation environment called VISE. This environment uses the SIMSCRIPT simulation language as modeling tool and offers various interaction, steering, and visualization facilities aiming at an easier and more powerful simulation activity.

Tradicionalmente, utiliza-se um servidor central para prover suporte a MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games, ou jogos online maciçamente multijogador), nos quais o número de participantes é da ordem de dezenas de milhares. Muitos trabalhos foram realizados com o intuito de criar um modelo de suporte completamente descentralizado, par-a-par, para este tipo de aplicação, minimizando o custo de manutenção da sua infraestrutura, mas algumas questões críticas persistem. Exemplos de problemas do modelo de suporte par-a-par são: vulnerabilidade a trapaça, sobrecarga da banda de envio dos pares e dificuldade para manter a consistência da simulação entre os diferentes participantes. Neste trabalho, é proposta a utilização de nodos de baixo custo geograficamente distribuídos, operando como um servidor distribuído de jogo. O modelo de distribuição proposto e alguns trabalhos relacionados também são apresentados. Para tratar o custo de comunicação imposto aos servidores, foi projetado aqui um novo refinamento para a técnica de gerenciamento de interesse, reduzindo significativamente a largura de banda necessária ao jogo. Foram realizadas simulações utilizando o simulador ns-2, comparando diferentes algoritmos de área de interesse. Os resultados demonstram que a nossa proposta é a que tem a menor utilização de largura de banda, com uma redução em 33,10% do tráfego máximo, e em 33,58% do tráfego médio, quando comparada com outros algoritmos de gerenciamento de interesse. Além disso, em uma arquitetura de servidor distribuído para MMOGs, com recursos heterogêneos, os nodos servidores podem ser facilmente sobrecarregados pela alta demanda dos jogadores por atualizações de estado. Neste trabalho, é proposto também um esquema de balanceamento de carga que utiliza o tráfego de rede como a carga a balancear entre os servidores e tem como objetivos principais: alocar a carga nos servidores proporcionalmente à capacidade de cada um e reduzir tanto quanto possível o overhead introduzido pela própria distribuição. O esquema de balanceamento é dividido em três fases: seleção local de servidores para participarem, o balanceamento em si e o posterior refinamento da divisão de carga. Quatro algoritmos foram propostos: ProGReGA, ProGReGA-KH, ProGReGA-KF e BFBCT. Destes, o ProGReGA foi o que introduziu o menor overhead de todos e o ProGReGA-KF foi o que se mostrou mais eficiente para reduzir o número de migrações de jogadores entre servidores. / Traditionally, a central server is used to provide support to MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games), where the number of participants is in the order of tens of thousands. Much work has been done trying to create a fully peer-to-peer model to support this kind of application, in order to minimize the maintenance cost of its infra-structure, but critical questions remain. Examples of the problems relative to peer-to-peer MMOG support systems are: vulnerability to cheating, overload of the upload links of the peers and difficulty to maintain consistency of the simulation among the participants. In this work, it is proposed the utilization of geographically distributed lower-cost nodes, working as a distributed server to the game. The distribution model and some related works are also presented. To address the communication cost imposed to the servers, we specify a novel refinement to the area of interest technique, significantly reducing the necessary bandwidth. Simulations have been made with ns-2, comparing different area of interest algorithms. The results show that our approach achieves the least bandwidth utilization, with a 33.10% maximum traffic reduction and 33.58% average traffic reduction, when compared to other area of interest algorithms. Besides, in a distributed MMOG server architecture, with heterogeneous resources, the server nodes may become easily overloaded by the high demand from the players for state updates. In this work, we also propose a load balancing scheme, which considers the network traffic as the load to balance between the servers, and it has the following main objectives: allocate load on the servers proportionally to the power of each one of them and reduce as much as possible the overhead introduced by the distribution itself. It is is divided in three phases: local selection of servers, balancing and refinement. Four algorithms were proposed: ProGReGA, ProGReGA-KH, ProGReGA-KF and BFBCT. From these, ProGReGA has proved to be the best for overhead reduction and ProGReGA-KF is the most suited for reducing player migrations between servers.

Análise exploratória visual e simulação interativa visual são duas áreas afins, porém tratadas separadamente até o momento. 0 trabalho relatado neste texto objetivou a abordagem unificada destas duas classes de problemas, a partir da identificação de ambas com as questões de linguagens visuais, visualização de dados e de programas. A partir de estudos de casos considerados representativos destas duas classes (análise de dados multivariados populacionais, análise de dados multivariados espaciais, análise de dados univariados, estudo de campos eletromagnéticos a partir de resultados da análise de elementos finitos, simulação interativa visual de objetos animados dinamicamente e simulação interativa de sistemas discretos) é estabelecida uma classificação de entidades e atributos. Entidades são consideradas como pertencendo a três grandes classes: sistemas compostos por múltiplas entidades, objetos manufaturáveis e entidades ou fenômenos naturais, e são caracterizadas por atributos que podem ser analisados de acordo com sua natureza, o tipo dos valores que podem assumir, a natureza e dimensão do domínio no qual estão definidos. A seguir, são identificados os objetivos e tarefas no tratamento das entidades e atributos. Como objetivos considera-se observação de objetos num contexto, analise da estrutura dos objetos, analise das suas propriedades estáticas ou dinâmicas, analise comparativa de vários objetos e comunicação de informações. Tarefas básicas que servem a realização dos diversos objetivos são navegação, seleção, consulta, preparação e controle de processamento, anotação de textos e armazenamento de resultados. Esta classificação de tarefas permite a determinação das ferramentas básicas necessárias a realização tanto de analise exploratória como de simulação interativa, ambas visuais. E estabelecido um conjunto coordenado de ferramentas que permitem a realização das tarefas mencionadas com as diferentes classes de entidades. Essencial a estas classes de problemas é a representação visual a ser adotada como forma de transmissão de uma informação a respeito de uma entidade. Este aspecto é enfatizado neste trabalho; é estabelecida uma taxonomia para representações visuais, a saber, Ícones, gráficos e tabelas, diagramas e redes, modelos geométricos, mapas e seqüencias. de acordo com a informação fornecida e com o atendimento dos objetivos identificados anteriormente. Na seqüência, é proposta uma metodologia para a escolha de representações visuais baseada na classe das entidades sob estudo e nos objetivos do estudo (ou de uma face do estudo), numa primeira etapa, e na natureza dos atributos e dimensão de seu domínio, numa segunda etapa. A tese apresenta a abordagem baseada em ferramentas como paradigma básico de linguagem visual para analise exploratória e simulação interativa visual e estende o use da abordagem declarativa de visualização de programas a questão de visualização de dados. As classes de entidades reconhecidas ao longo do estudo são modeladas de acordo com a abordagem orientada a objetos: da mesma forma, o conjunto de ferramentas é organizado numa plataforma orientada a objetos. Esta plataforma é comparada, do ponto de vista funcional e considerando diferentes classes de usuários, com sistemas existentes. A estrutura proposta é, ainda, discutida como um modelo de referência para analise exploratória e simulação interativa visual. / Two related areas, visual exploratory analysis and visual interactive simulation, have been handled separately until now. This thesis gives an integrated approach to these two classes of problems, based on their relationships to visual languages, data visualization and program visualization. Case studies representing both areas like multivariate analysis of populational data, multivariate analysis of spatial data, analysis of univariate data, study of electromagnetic fields based on finite element analysis, dynamic graphical simulation and interactive visual discrete-event simulation, allow the construction of a taxonomy for entities and attributes. Entities are considered to belong to three classes: multiple-entity systems, manufacturable objects, and natural entities or phenomena. They are characterized by their attributes, which in turn are classified by nature, value types and nature and dimension of their definition domain. The goals and tasks in the study of entities and attributes are identified. Goals are observing an object in a context, analyzing an object structure, analyzing their static and dynamic properties, comparing objects or different states of objects and communicating information. Tasks are elementary procedures employed to achieve certain goals: navigation, selection, query, modification, processing control, text annotation and data storage. This classification of tasks determine the basic tools that a scientific user needs to visually explore data or conduct visual interactive simulation studies. These tools are organized as a set of interactive procedures that can be applied to visual representations of entities or their attributes. Visual representations are, of course, essential to visual exploratory analysis and visual interactive simulation, in order to precisely and adequately represent information about entities. This question is emphasized in this work. Based on the information conveyed by the several existing graphical representations as well as the goals established earlier, six classes of visual representations are considered: icons, graphs and tables, diagrams and networks, geometric models, maps, and sequences of these representations. A methodology for selecting the appropriate visual representation is then proposed, based firstly on the goals of the study and the classes of entities and attributes, and secondly on the nature and dimension of the attributes domain. This thesis presents a tool-centered approach as the paradigm for both visual exploratory analysis and visual interactive simulation. The thesis also extends the concept of declarative visualization employed for program visualization to scientific data visualization. The classes of entities identified in the case studies are modeled using the object-oriented approach; the set of tools defined here is also organized in an objectoriented framework. Our proposal is discussed as a reference model for visual exploratory analysis and visual interactive simulation.