Dr Nura Abubakar
Associate Lecturer (Education)

Research area(s)

Cloud-Based Distributed Modelling and Simulation

I built and demonstrated a cloud-based distributed simulation system that represents a world first in the area. Distributed simulation involves linking together many simulations in real-time (e.g., simulations of hospitals across London) as though they are a single simulation (e.g., a comprehensive simulation of hospitals across London). The problem is that the simulations and the computers they run on are difficult to access. Cloud computing offers a great alternative as these simulations can be run “in the Cloud” and accessed by everyone who has permission. The computers they run on are hired just for the runs and there makes it incredibly cheap. The problem is that no one had figured out how to do this, and there are very few publications in the area (despite great demand). The research proposed a development framework to guide experienced and non-technical analysts in implementing cloud-based distributed simulation (CBDS) and a scalable Distributed simulation Cloud Architecture for Experimentation (DICE). Experimental results demonstrated its feasibility and how to use Cloud to perform high-performance simulation. A world first basically.

Research Interests

Cloud Computing, Distributed Simulation, and Agent-Based Modelling.