Using a subset of a SUMO scenario for OMNeT++ network simulation (with VEINS)

Question

I'm trying to evaluate an application that runs on a vehicular network using OMNeT++, Veins and SUMO. Because the application relies on realistic traffic behavior, so I decided to use the LuST Scenario, which seems to be the state of the art for such data. However, I'd like to use specific parts of this scenario instead of the entire scenario (e.g., a high and a low traffic load fragment, perhaps others). It'd be nice to keep the bidirectional functionality that VEINS offers, although I'm mostly interested in getting traffic data from SUMO into my simulation.

One obvious way to implement this would be to use a warm-up period. However, I'm wondering if there is a more efficient way -- simulating 8 hours of traffic just to get a several-minute fragment feels inefficient and may be problematic for simulations with sufficient repetitions.

Does VEINS have a built-in mechanism for warm-up periods, primarily one that avoids sending messages (which is by far the most time consuming part in the simulation), or does it have a way to wait for SUMO to advance, e.g., to a specific time stamp (which also avoids creating vehicle objects in OMNeT++ and thus all the initiation code)?

In case it's relevant -- I'm using the latest stable versions of OMNeT++ and SUMO (OMNeT++ 4.6 with SUMO 0.25.0) and my code base is based on VEINS 4a2 (with some changes, notably accepting the TraCI API version 10).

Answer 1

There are two things you can do here for reducing the number of sent messages in Veins:

1. Use the OMNeT++ Warm-Up Period as described here in the manual. Basically it means to set warmup-period in your .ini file and make sure your code checks this with if (simTime() >= simulation.getWarmupPeriod()). The OMNeT++ signals for result collection are aware of this.

2. The TraCIScenarioManager offers a variable double firstStepAt @unit("s") which you can use to delay the start of it. Again this can be set in the .ini file.

3. As the VEINS FAQ states, the TraCIScenarioManagerLaunchd offers two variables to configure the region of interest, based on rectangles or roads (string roiRoads and string roiRects). To reduce the simulated area, you can restrict simulation to a specific rectangle; for example, *.manager.rioRects="1000,1000-3000,3000" simulates a 2x2km area between the two supplied coordinates.

With both solutions (best used in combination) you still have to run SUMO - but Veins barely consums any of the time.