Distributed Boids Simulation: Performance Analysis and Implementation Challenges

Boids is a computer methodology to simulate animal flocking behavior. Each boid within the flock is modeled using simple geometric steering rules to define how it moves. Past research uses a boids model in areas such as animation, simulation, and drone swarms. While most approaches utilize a fully centralized architecture where all components are hosted on one computer, this research encapsulates individual boid behavior and distributes it among several computational devices. This is primarily achieved through the use of middleware client software that facilitates the distributed aspect. For our implementation, Docker was used to containerize the program component; RabbitMQ and Redis were used to facilitate communication and storage. Each component of this distributed system was tested and evaluated on a single host machine.