Distributed Interactive Simulation Prototyping with Mininet

Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) is a standardized protocol used to foster interoperability between distributed virtual simulations. While each simulation may have a slightly different notion of entity states within its view, the consistent exchange of DIS packets keeps deviations bounded. This deviation, however, is altered under different network conditions such as latency and packet loss. In order to test and evaluate the effect that varying network topologies and conditions have on distributed simulations, we leverage a lightweight containerized testbed using the Mininet network emulation package. A two-node system exchanging DIS-compliant packets is detailed, along with methods for capturing and measuring relevant network traffic and entity state information.