OBJECT REQUEST BROKER - FOUNDATION FOR DISTRIBUTED SIMULATION

Real-time, human-in-the-loop simulation of air traffic control is natu rally distributed across computing platforms because of the need for m any input and display devices, the need for computing power, and the n eed to integrate legacy simulations that run on a variety of platforms . Object orientation has a long history of fruitful application to sim ulation problems, including real-time simulation. Thus there is great interest in commercial products for distributed object management. We have examined the suitability of object request broker (ORB) technolog y for simulation control, i.e. applications-as-objects, and for suppor ting truly object-oriented, distributed, real-time simulation. Our exp erience with DEC's ORB shows that at present the former is feasible bu t the latter is probably not; however the available implementations ar e changing rapidly. ORB technology can also bring the distributed inte ractive simulation (DIS) protocol of the DoD into an object-oriented f ramework.