Modern Live, Virtual, and Constructive (LVC) simulation environments are highly complex systems. The integration of numerous heterogeneous simulation components and supporting utilities (e.g., viewers, loggers) into a coherent, logically unified, and internally consistent test or training environment is extremely challenging. Additional complexities may also include the need to reconcile differences in the way individual LVC components exchange data at runtime and the need to adjudicate across dissimilar simulation services when multiple simulation architectures are employed in the same LVC environment.
Gateways are intelligent translators that are widely used in the simulation community to translate among the different simulation protocols and data formats that may be present within a given LVC environment, enabling operation across dissimilar architectures. Although gateways are commonplace in LVC events and have a history of effectively accomplishing their stated purpose, there are also a number of well-documented gateway issues that increase both cost and schedule risk for LVC applications and can also adversely affect technical quality. The LVC Architecture Roadmap Implementation (LVCAR-I) is addressing these challenges via a set of new products that allow LVC developers to make better, more informed choices on the gateway that best aligns with their application requirements while also streamlining the process of defining all necessary gateway translations and configuring the gateway for runtime operation.
This paper focuses on the need for gateway performance testing. A Gateway Performance Benchmarks (GPB) Specification was developed to define formal measures for gateway performance along with explicit use cases in which the benchmarks could be applied. The next phase focused on the development of supporting test methodologies, a gateway performance test harness design, and an initial instantiation of the test harness design. These products collectively define an integrated mechanism for measuring gateway performance that allows for direct comparisons of performance characteristics across multiple gateway products.