Simulation as a Service for Cooperative Vehicles

Simulating connected vehicles in realistic environments is a computationally expensive task, particularly when large numbers of traffic participants are involved. To cope with exploding hardware requirements it can become indispensable to tackle such simulations in a divide and conquer manner. A promising approach breaking down a simulation scenario in a set of small tasks is the spatial subdivision of the simulated area. Thereby, each spatial sector is simulated by a dedicated sub-simulator enabling efficient distribution of the overall simulation across multiple machines. However, a distributable and easy-to-use simulation solution providing automated scalability and hiding the distribution complexity from the simulation engineer requires a service-based simulator architecture equipped with interfaces for simulation control, integration, and resource management. In this work, building upon previous results we propose a cloud-ready simulation infrastructure providing automotive engineers with the ability to analyze large scale connected traffic scenarios without caring about the execution environment. As a consequence, the proposed solution can be integrated seamlessly into existing continuous integration environments supporting agile research and development processes for cooperatively interacting vehicles.