Design and development of a cluster gateway for cluster-based HLA distributed virtual simulation environments

Scalability is an important issue in distributed virtual simulation environments (DVSE) supported by the High Level Architecture. A Cluster-based DVSE (CDVSE) is one way to scale DVSEs using an additional device called a cluster gateway (CGATE). CGATEs interlink discrete federations into an integrated cluster-based architecture. This paper discusses the design and issues involved in the development of CGATE. Issues related to interaction among multiple cluster-based federations are also examined. Three RTI service categories, i.e. federation management, declaration management and object management, are currently supported in CDVSE to enable a modest HLA distributed simulation. Standard RTI services are extended to the inter-cluster interaction and facilitate the operation of CGATE while maintaining compliance to the HLA interface specification. Experiments have been carried out to measure the latency incurred in passing though the CGATE and show encouraging results.