Hybrid Simulation of Distributed Large-Scale Critical Infrastructures

Abstract

The distributed and complexity nature of modern critical infrastructures that have to provide integrated services through the interoperability of heterogeneous subsystems, even spread among different countries, require new methodologies and tools to dominate overall systems complexity. In particular, in order to get knowledge about their real behavior and define dependability improvement actions, such complex and distributed systems should be reproduced and simulated locally. On the other hand, the extraordinary large number of their components cause a large-scale of the resulting model, limiting its resolution by current simulators. This paper presents a framework to implement hybrid simulation of distributed large-scale critical infrastructures, such as Air Traffic Control (ATC) and Vessel Traffic System (VTS). High Level Architecture (HLA) has been introduced into the engine simulations platform as its design and development foundation, whereas cloud-based virtualization techniques have been exploited in order to reproduce the overall distributed system on a local adaptive testbed. The use of such a framework can result in a considerable reduction of costs in all the system life phases, as well as an increased system dependability level.