1) The document summarizes the results of a peer study on future trends in distributed simulation and distributed virtual environments. It describes a survey conducted between September and October 2007 that received responses from 61 individuals. 2) The survey examined the current and future relevance of distributed simulation and distributed virtual environments technologies. It also identified key research challenges and trends in these areas. 3) Some of the research challenges identified included solving conflicts between interaction/response times and consistency in distributed virtual environments, developing easy to use synchronization algorithms, and achieving true plug-and-play and semantic interoperability capabilities.

1. State-of-the-art, Relevance, and Research Challenges in Distributed Simulation (DS) and Distributed Virtual Environments (DVE) Rafaela Vilela da Rocha VIII Workshop LRVNet 18/12/2009

2. Future Trends in Distributed Simulation and Distributed Virtual Environments: Results of a Peer Study Steffen Strassburger School of Economic Sciences - Ilmenau University of Technology Ilmenau, GERMANY Thomas Schulze School of Computer Science - University of Magdeburg Magdeburg, GERMANY Richard Fujimoto Computational Science & Engineering - Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, U.S.A Proceedings of the 2008 Winter Simulation Conference

3. Survey Conducted in the period from September 15, 2007 until October 15, 2007 Consisted of two parts: 1) Evaluation of the relevanceof the technologies (DS/DVE) today and in future 08 questions 2) Research Challenges and Trends 09 questions

4. Questions classification questions- scale from 0 to 5 5 very high 4: high 3 medium 2: low 1: very low 0: none open questions- possibilities to comment

5. 61 individuals completed the survey questionnaire Classification of Participants with regard to their Organization Relationship of Participants to DS/DVE Technologies Relationship of Participants to Countries

6. 1) Evaluation of the relevanceof the technologies (DS/DVE) today and in future

7. Applications 1: DVEs for improving the communication between company sites 2: Distributed Training Sessions 3: Joining computer resources for complex distributed simulations 4: Integrating heterogeneous resources for DS 5: Distributed Design Reviews 6: DVEs as a replacement of video conferencing technologies 7: DVEs as an enhancement of video conferencing technologies Others relevant: Area of production planning and control Area of product development

8. The current adoption of the technologies in industry and defense Defense Technological barriers Organizational issues Industry A lack of good technical solutions The need for more basic research Current Adoption

10. Virtual Training Applications in general

11. Command and Control tool for remote operations, especially in space exploration missions

12. Virtual Meetings

14. DS/DVE Standards and Protocols * they were known by a minority of participants The most critical issue HLA: Poor Scalability Covers only syntactic interoperability (not semantic) DIS: Limited conceptual versatility (i.e. only applicable to real-time simulations) Restriction to a single domain (military training simulations)

15. Base Technologies 1: Network technologies 2: Distributed Simulation Middleware 3: Human-Computer-Interfaces 4: Semantic Web (to support semantic interoperability) 5: Graphics Hardware 6: High Performance Computing the fields rated as the most promising areas of research

16. “Grand Challenges” Solving the intrinsic conflict between desire for high interactivity / response times and the need for maintaining consistency in DVEs Easy to use synchronization algorithms which idealistically solve the "zero lookahead problem" True plug-and-play capability Automatic or semi-automatic semantic interoperability between domains (ontologies, standard reference models, metamodels)

17. Trends Increasing popularity of Personal Computing Devices Service oriented architectures Ambient networks Open source solutions Rising importance of homeland security and critical infrastructure protection Ubiquity of visual media Expectation of instant easy communication (cell phone, I-pod, email, …) Augmented reality systems Introduction of haptic and other multimodal interfaces

18. Solutions SISOdraft standard for Simulation Package Interoperability German Armed Forces' Simulation & Test Environment (SuTBw) VBS2.com (Virtual Battlespace 2) HLA (High Level Architecture for Modeling and Simulation) MDA(Model Driven Architecture) DEVS (Discrete Event System Specification)

19. Actors/Participants Gaming Industry Defense Agencies (US DOD, German Armed Forces' IT-Agency) SISO(Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization) Marketing Decision Makers

20. HLA Compliant Training Simulations Creation Tool ROCHA, R. V. ; ARAUJO, R. B. ; CAMPOS, M. R. ; BOUKERCHE, A. . HLA Compliant Training Simulations Creation Tool. In: The 13-th ACM(*) International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real Time Applications (DS-RT 2009), 2009, Singapore. The 13-th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real Time Applications, 2009.

21. Architecture to Support the Creation of Emergency Management Training Simulation P H YS I C A L W O R L D (1) Develop Simulation Model HLA compliant Simulation Repository Physical Engine Simulations Creation Tool Human Engine C O N C E P T U A L W O R L D other engines Ontologies F E D E R A T I O N (2) Execute Simulation Model FDD DB Simulation Controller / Monitor RTI X3D DB X3D Visualizer Context DB V I R T U A L W O R L D … (3) Analyse Output Services Middleware (MidSensorNet) Simulation Output Analyser Tool Output Repository R E P O R T S

26. Respiratory Protection Reserve EquipmentPerson Vehicle EVENTS Emergency Infrastructure

27. FIRE Strategies 1- Ventilação natural vertical e Nebulização 2- Ataque Indireto 3- Ataque Direto 1 BACKDRAFT store production free area Surrounding risks 2 3 AB ABP VO UT UR veranda reception Characters N WE S Soldier Corporal Sergeant Officer Vehicles AB - Auto-Bomba ABP- Auto-Bomba Plataforma UR - Unidade de Resgate UT - Utilitário VO - Veículo Orgânico W I N D Proof of Concept : A fry chip factory CommandPost

28. Thank you! Rafaela Vilela da Rocha VIII Workshop LRVNet 18/12/2009