Study Of Simulation Support Environment For Distributed Satellite Systems

The Simulation Support Environment(SSE) is an enable technology for Distributed Satellite Systems(DSS), which is an important direction for satellites technology development. Based on an in-depth analysis of SSE, the design of an SSE was presented and the core of the SSE was implemented and validated. The main research contents can be drawn as follows.(1) The requirements and technology of SSE were analyzed, followed by the key challenge of SSE: how to achieve a real-time distributed simulation as well as the interoperability and reusability. Several key techniques of SSE, the middleware and the framework, were discussed, which led to our design philosophy: based on Data Distribution Service(DDS), applying Data Oriented Design Paradigm, construct a Service Oriented Architecture(SOA) style Simulation Support Framework(SSF). DDS based SOA finds a new way to implement SOA, which gives consideration to both real-time performance and loose coupling.(2) The design of the SSE was introduced, including its hardware architecture, software function as well as the architecture of SSF and its possible extensions. The service of SSF consists of three environments: Simulation Component Development Environment(SCDE), System Simulation Development Environment(SSDE) and System Simulation Runtime Environment(SSRE). SSRE is the core of the service. The hierarchical architecture of Simulation Runtime Support Framework(SRSF) ensures the openness, extensibility and maintainability of SSE. The transparent two-layer inner-process and inter-process SRSF enables appropriate arrangement of simulation components according to their coupling strength, which improves the efficiency and flexibility of simulation. The Tree Publish-Subscribe pattern can encapsulate unnecessary details of models, resulting in modularized complexity.(3) The prototype of the SSE, including its Publish-Subscribe Service and Time Management, was implemented base on TAO_DDS, which is an open-source implementation of DDS.(4) A simulation example of a reconnaissance satellite constellation was carried out to demonstrate the functions of SSE and validate our design. Result shows that SSE can improve the quality and efficiency of M&S of DSS, by enabling designers to concentrate on high level analysis.