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Session 2420

SimPlus: An Experimental Simulation Tool

Hassan Rajaei, Scott Harper, Tom Mancine, Ryan Scott

Department of Computer Science Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, Ohio 43403 email: rajaei@cs.bgsu.edu

Abstract

SimPlus is a simulation toolkit in C++. It has evolved from a final class project for a computer science course on Simulation Techniques to its current release as a UNIX static library. A key objective of the final class project was to provide students with good understanding of the underlying mechanism of a simulation engine. Each group of 2-3 students was assigned to one project. SimPlus is the result if one group. Over the course of the project, SimPlus gained numerous advanced features such as a global static kernel implementing the Singleton design pattern, and callback-method automated event processing.

1. Introduction

Simulation tools aims at facilitating the tasks of analysts or engineers. Without such tools, writing a simulation program often becomes difficult and requires reinvention of the wheel at the beginning of each project. As a result, simulation tools have become very popular for industrial, defense, and educational applications.

For educational purposes, the final class project of our course on Simulation Techniques aimed to provide the students with practical experiences and good understanding of the underlying mechanism of simulation tools. Each group of students was assigned to one project for a period of 4 weeks. The class project was supervised through a project meeting concept, which is often used in engineering environment to safeguard the outcome and on time delivery. SimPlus is the resulting work of one group. SimPlus evolved from a final class project to its current release as a UNIX static library with advanced features.

We experimented first with a simple simulation library called Simlib, which was devised by Law & Kelton1 for rudimentary simulation tasks. We completed several assignments with Simlib over the course of the semester and became intimately acquainted with its strengths and weaknesses. We also tried NS, Network Simulator2, and found it lacking certain flexibilities. As a final project, we aimed to improve Simlib, concentrating on three requirements: to re- implement the code in C++, to improve event-list management, and to improve random number

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Mancine, T., & Harper, S., & Scott, R., & Rajaei, H. (2004, June), Simplus: An Experimental Simulation Tool Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--14096