Predictable time management for real-time distributed simulation

We introduce a technique to control the overhead of time management processes in order to make such mechanisms appropriate for real-time distributed simulation is introduced. A novel message accounting scheme, the offset-epoch method, is presented as a way to increase the efficiency of time management algorithms by eliminating transient messages. A synchronized lower-bound on timestamp (LBTS) computation exploits this efficiency to reduce time management overheads. This approach represents one step in bridging the gap that now exists between analytic and real-time distributed simulations.