BOMNET: An OMNeT++ Open-Source BIM-based Plug-In for Automatic Environment Generation

In 1992, OMNeT++ has been developed at the Technical University of Budapest by Andras Varga. More than 30 years later, it remains a cornerstone framework in academia and industry for both simulating wired and wireless networks, with the integration of the INET package. While it is possible to generate environments within INET in the context of wireless communications in order to simulate the impact of obstacles on the signal propagation, it necessitates manual construction of each element of the structure. Conversely, Digital Twins of structures are increasingly utilized within Industry 4.0. In this work, we introduce an OMNeT++ Open-Source Plug-In, named BOMNET, designed to automatically generate the environment using the Digital Twin of a structure. We first present OMNeT++ and INET features before explaining BOMNET process for extracting relevant Digital Twin data and generating the environment. We then present an illustrative example of BOMNET’s capabilities, comparing simulated results with and without the use of the Digital Twin to real-world measurements of a WiFi emitter testbed situated in a large building.