A distributed system for the simulation of people flows in an airport terminal

摘要

The research described in this paper introduces a novel distributed computing environment designed as a simulation tool for the analysis of large and disaggregated data flows. Our research is based on a mapping between a real-world system, in which the interest of study is the modelling of disaggregated data flows, and a distributed computing environment, both being modelled as a graph. This distributed computing environment is a middleware whose dynamic properties replicate the behaviour of large data flows, i.e. computing objects migrating between the different computing nodes of a local area network. It also supports distribution and processing of objects at the appropriate level of granularity, that is, the nodes of the computing graph. This approach gives a high level of flexibility and scalability to the system. We believe that such a distributed computing environment provides a novel solution for the exploration and understanding of patterns produced by disaggregated-based systems. The potential of our middleware is illustrated by a case study that simulates large people flows for different hall configurations of an airport terminal.