Network Simulator OMNeT++

OMNeT++ is a simulation platform for discrete-event systems. Even though it is primarily targeted at simulating computer networks and distributed systems, it cannot be used without any extensions for wireless communication. For this kind of simulations, external model frameworks have to be included.

For the integration to Eclipse MOSAIC the INET framework is selected as it provides all models necessary for simulating Vehicle-2-X communication in ad-hoc mode (based on IEEE 1609 and IEEE 802.11(p)) and even more. For more information on the INET extension you should look closer on the website.

Installation

While we recommend GNU/Linux platforms for installing OMNeT++, the official project provides an Windows installation based on mingw.

Beside mingw for Windows you might consider

• the installation in Docker environment
• the Windows Subsystem for Linux
• the installation of Linux in a virtual machine environment, such as VMware or VirtualBox.

We prepared an installation script, which manages most of the required work. The script provides two installation types tailored to the needs of USERs or even DEVELOPERs. With the additional method of using Docker or the purely manual installation, the following options are possible:

Follow the links and download the source code of OMNeT++, INET and the MOSAIC OMNeT++ Federate:

The installer script is located in the OMNeT++ federate folder

└─ mosaic/bin/fed/
   └─ omnetpp
      ├─ Dockerfile.sh ..................... Dockerfile for OMNeT++ federate
      ├─ omnet_installer.sh ................ Installation script for OMNeT++
      └─ rebuild_federate.sh ............... Rebuild script to ease compilation process for Developers

Available parameters of omnet_installer.sh:

Installation for Users

Run the installation script (this takes a few minutes):

cd <mosaic>/bin/fed/omnetpp
chmod +x omnet_installer.sh`
./omnet_install.sh \
    --installation-type USER \
    --omnetpp /path/to/omnetpp-5.5.1-src.tgz \
    --inet /path/to/inet-4.1.1-src.tgz \
    --federate /path/to/omnetpp-federate-24.0.zip

The parameters --omnetpp, --inet, and --federate are optional. If not given, the respective source code package will be downloaded by the installation script.
The installation script should terminate with SUCESS: The MOSAIC OMNeT++ Federate was successfully installed. otherwise the installation failed.

Installation for Developers

Run the installation script (this takes a few minutes):

cd <mosaic>/bin/fed/omnetpp
chmod +x omnet_installer.sh`
./omnet_install.sh \
    --installation-type DEVELOPER \
    --federate /path/to/omnetpp-federate-24.0.zip

For the installation type DEVELOPER the parameter -f is required. The installation script should terminate with SUCCESS: The MOSAIC OMNeT++ Federate was successfully installed. otherwise the installation failed.

Please continue reading here for more details on setting up a development environment for the OMNeT++ federate.

Installation in Docker environment

This guide gives instructions to execute the OMNeT++ federate inside a docker container. If you already installed OMNeT++ on your machine following the steps before, you can skip this section.

Docker is a new approach to execute software. More precisely, it “wraps software in a complete filesystem that contains everything it needs to run: code, runtime, system tools, and system libraries”. As a result, the software is executed within a container and its execution does not rely on the environment the container is running in.

In context of Eclipse MOSAIC, this approach allows to execute OMNeT++ within a docker container. The user does not need to manually install OMNeT++ and can even run OMNeT++ on Windows hosts.

1. Install Docker ≥ 1.13 on your machine.
2. To get everything to work, please make sure to execute the following steps depending on your operating system:
   • Windows - In the settings, share the drive where Eclipse MOSAIC is installed on. You may need to restart docker in the reset tab.
   • Linux - Make sure your user account belongs to the unix-group docker. You may need to restart your machine.
3. Switch to the location of the Dockerfile in <mosaic>/bin/fed/omnetpp
4. Download inet-4.1.1-src.tgz and omnetpp-5.5.1-src-linux.tgz and place them in <mosaic>/bin/fed/omnetpp.
5. Execute the following command on command line: docker build -t omnetpp-federate . This could take a while to finish.
6. Enter the name of the docker image etc/runtime.json in the omnetpp-section into the property dockerImage:

"federates": [
   ...
   {
      "id": "omnetpp",
      "dockerImage": "omnetpp-federate",
      ...
   },
   ...
]

Configuration

To use OMNeT++ as network simulator in an Eclipse MOSAIC simulation, open <scenarioName>/scenario_config.json and enable OMNeT++:

"federates": {
   ...
   "omnetpp": true,
   ...
}

Now, when you run this scenario, Eclipse MOSAIC will automatically start the MOSAIC OMNeT++ Federate.

The main configuration of the MOSAIC OMNeT++ Federate is done within the configuration files omnetpp.ini and omnetpp_config.json in the scenario:

└─ <scenario_name>
   └─ omnetpp
      ├─ omnetpp.ini ...................... OMNeT++ federate configuration file
      └─ omnetpp_config.json .............. Ambassador configuration file

The omnetpp_config.json mainly allows the configuration of a filter for different message routing options employed in the ambassador. The current integration of OMNeT++/INET does not support all combinations (e.g. no TCP is possible for ad-hoc communication). Accordingly, changes in this config would require adaptions in the OMNeT++/INET integration as well and are therefore only recommended developers not for users.

The whole OMNeT++ specific configuration is done via the omnetpp.ini file. It covers static parts for the simulator coupling such as the specific Eclipse MOSAIC Event Scheduler and the ScenarioManager. Furthermore, logging configurations and the typical parameters for the communication layers (MAC, PHY and Radio Channel) are addressed. The communication parameters are different for vehicles and RSUs. Please refer to the OMNeT++ documentation on the OMNeT++ homepage for further information about the structure of the omnetpp.ini file.