Introducing the Simulation Plugin Interface and the EAS Framework with comparison to two state-of-the-art agent simulation frameworks

This paper proposes a novel architectural concept for developing agent-based simulations called Simulation Plugin Interface (SPI); furthermore, a simulation framework called Easy Agent Simulation (EAS) based on the proposed architecture is presented. The SPI introduces an intermediate layer between the simulation engine and the simulation model. It contains all types of functionality which are required for a simulation but are logically separable from the simulation model. This includes visualization, probes, statistics calculations, logging, scheduling, API to other programming languages, etc. The architecture is particularly suitable to guide student programmers with low experience to well-structured and reusable simulation components. The SPI architecture is not bound to the EAS Framework, but can be implemented as an extension to most state-of-the-art simulation frameworks. In a comparative study, the EAS framework is compared to the agent simulation frameworks NetLogo and MASON, using the well-known “Stupid Model” as a test scenario.