Integrating a Network Simulator with the High Level Architecture for the Co-Simulation of Cyber- Physical Systems

Published

April 7, 2020

Author(s)

Thomas P. Roth, Cuong T. Nguyen, Martin J. Burns, Himanshu Neema

Abstract

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) use logical computation informed by measurements of the environment to actuate changes on the physical world. These systems have significant impact on people, and must be designed for resilience against fault and attack. However, due to their large scale, assurance of CPS trustworthiness is better suited to modeling and simulation than deployment of a real system. This paper describes an approach to integrate a network simulator with the High Level Architecture (HLA) to investigate the effects of different network conditions on CPS performance. Using this approach, an HLA interaction class can be configured to use network simulation rather than the default reliable HLA delivery mechanism. A technique similar to regions defined in HLA data distribution management is used to allow each federate to receive the same interactions at different logical time steps, as simulated by the network simulator. This is implemented in a piece of reusable code shared by federates that sits between the runtime infrastructure (RTI) and application code. The implementation can be used to create a test harness around the federates that represent the operation of a CPS to validate its behavior under unreliable network conditions.

Conference Dates

February 10-14, 2020

Conference Location

Orlando, FL

Conference Title

2020 Simulation Innovation Workshop

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

cyber-physical systems, high level architecture, network simulation, smart grid

Citation

Roth, T. , Nguyen, C. , Burns, M. and Neema, H. (2020), Integrating a Network Simulator with the High Level Architecture for the Co-Simulation of Cyber- Physical Systems, 2020 Simulation Innovation Workshop, Orlando, FL, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=929390 (Accessed October 10, 2025)