Introduction
The Integration Simulator is standalone software that allows the end user or integrator to test and develop connections to integration plugins. Please contact your sales manager if you wish to obtain a copy of the Integration Simulation software.
The simulator is able to simulate the majority of the Witness system output and enables testing of the system integration without having to spend days commissioning a full radar system beforehand.
For customers and integrators intending to use the Integration Simulator, the documents assume a reasonable working knowledge of network communication. They are targeted at technical teams, typically with software development skills, who are integrating the output from Witness into external systems.
If the software won't start then you will need to delete the Highways Integration Simulator folder. It may be located here: C:\ProgramData\Navtech\Highways Integration Simulator. Please note that C:\ProgramData could be in a different place depending on where your window's application data folder is located.
The Integration Simulator should then start and create a new default config.
Contents
User Interface
Plugin Tree: Lists all the integration and simulation plugins. The Start and Stop buttons will start and stop any enabled integration plugins.
Plugin Configuration Panel: This panels displays the configuration for the currently selected plugin, either integration or simulator.
Log Panel: Shows all the log output from the application and plugins.
The Integration Simulator will load up two distinctly different types of plugins - integration plugins and simulation plugins.
Integration plugins are the Navtech Witness system plugins that integrate with external systems. The purpose of the integration simulator application is to enable testing these integrations without having to fully deploy a Navtech system.
Simulation plugins are specifically for the Integration Simulator. They simulate the rest of the Navtech system and provide output to the integration plugins, such as alarms or carriageway statistics. Selecting a plugin, whether integration plugin or simulation plugin, will display the plugin's configuration on the Plugin Configuration Panel.
Configuring Integration Plugins
To configure an integration plugin, you can select an integration plugin from the tree and click Edit. This will display the same configuration editor as you would see in the Witness client.
Saving the configuration will have the same effect as on an actual Witness system - plugins that are enabled will try to automatically start themselves.
Like Witness, on first launching the Integration Simulator, enabled plugins will automatically start. However they can be controlled using the Start and Stop buttons if required.
A plugin that is not enabled cannot be started.
Please see the details for each integration plugin:
Configuring Simulation Plugins
The simulation plugins are specific to the product, so ClearWay™ and AdvanceGuard® have their own. These plugins simulate the Witness functionality associated with these products, such as raising alarms or generating tracks.
System Simulator
The System Simulator handles common system level settings, including System Profiles and Areas.
Profiles
System Profiles: This simulates the Witness system profile. It shows the currently selected profile and allows you to change the profile. The profile can be changed by selecting the required profile and selecting the Set System Profile button. This can trigger outgoing profile status reports (e.g. Navtech ICD-001 Protocol) and also respond to incoming profile change requests.
Selected: Checkbox to select a system profile.
Profile Id: Numeric Id of the profile.
Profile Name: The name of the profile.
Areas
Areas: This simulates a fixed list of areas. Each area has a different type and the system will show its mode and if it is enabled. The state can be changed by highlighting an area and selecting the Set State button. In addition, if an area state is changed through an integration plugin then the modified state will be displayed here.
Id: The area user Id.
Name: Area name.
Type: The area type.
Enabled: The current state of the area.
Disarm Mode: The current mode of the area.
System Health Simulator
The health simulator enables you to generate health status reports and alarms with details of the radar and modules. You can adjust the status of the radar and the modules using the plugin configuration. For example, you can change a radar’s health or connection health to unhealthy, and then you can generate a status report or an alarm to report this change.
Radars: This is a list of pre-configured radar showing their health and connection status. Both can be changed for testing purposes.
Include: Option to include or exclude the radar within the health reporting.
Name: Name of the radar.
Id: User Id of the radar.
Health: Health status of the radar.
Connection Health: Health status of the radar connection.
The number of radars listed is based on the number of radars configured in the Security or Highways Simulator plugin. Both these plugins allow you to change the number of available radar. They will always provide 5 radar by default.
Modules: This is a list of pre-configured modules and active integration plugins showing their connection health status. The Management Server also has an additional status that simulates the database health. All available health states can be changed for testing purposes.
Include: Option to include or exclude the radar within the health reporting.
Module Name: Name of the module.
Connection Health: Current module health status.
Database Health: Current database health.
To trigger a topology update, which is usually translated to a status report by the integration plugins, select the Send Topology button. To trigger one or more health alarms based on any radars or modules that have health status set to anything other than Healthy, select the Send Alarms button.
To clear a health alarm, set the health status on the radar or the module back to Healthy and resend the alarms using Send Alarms.
Security Simulator
Configure Simulation
These buttons provide options to manage the simulator configuration:
Configure Radars: Allows you to change the number of radars to simulate - both for alarms and health.
Save Configuration: Enables you to force the configuration to be saved.
Reset Configuration: Resets and reloads the configuration. This option honours the configured number of radar but it will also reset the data to the last saved state. This enables configs to be saved and moved to a different PC if required.
Security Alarms
Allows you to create, publish and clear security alarms:
Add Alarms: Select this button to create a new alarm. Once clicked the alarm form will be enabled so you can populate the alarm details.
Send Alarms: Select this to publish all alarms to the plugins. The plugins will receive the alarms have send out messages based on the current alarm states.
Clear Alarms: Select this to clear all selected alarms in the active alarms list.
Acknowledge Alarms: Select this to acknowledge the selected alarms. This will clear the alarms from the list.
Adding Alarms
To add a new alarm:
Select Add Alarms.
Edit the alarm details.
Repeat steps 1 & 2 as required.
Once ready, select Send Alarms to publish the configured alarm list.
You can add several alarms at the same time. Once added, you will be able to edit any of these alarms by selecting them in the active list. However as soon as you select Send Alarms you will only be able to edit the alarm severity. Once you have sent the alarm list, the clear and acknowledge alarms options will become available.
Update Existing Alarm
To update an existing alarm:
Select the alarm you wish to update.
Change the severity (this is the only property available to change after you have published the alarms at least once).
Select the Send Alarms.
Clearing Active Alarms
To clear active alarms:
Select the required alarms from the active list.
Select the Clear Alarms button.
Alarms will be marked as cleared in the list and alarm updates will be automatically published.
Alarms must have been sent before they can be cleared.
Acknowledging Alarms
To acknowledge a cleared alarm:
Select the cleared alarms you wish to acknowledge.
Select Acknowledge Alarms.
The alarm will be acknowledged and automatically removed from the list. Alarm updates will be automatically published.
Alarms must have been cleared before they can be acknowledged.
Camera Commands
Allows you to create and publish camera movement commands. The simulator provides 3 default cameras for testing.
Send Camera Command: Sends a camera command for the selected camera.
To send a camera control:
Select a camera from the list.
Enter a movement type and relay Id, if required.
Select the Send Camera Command button.
Tracks
Allows you to create and publish tracks. Tracks can include the normal position and movement data as well as broken rule information.
Add Track: Allows you to enter new track details.
Send Tracks: Select this to publish the active list of tracks.
Clear Tracks: Select this to clear the selected tracks.
To Add Tracks
Select Add Track.
The track will be added to the active track list with default data.
Edit the settings to suit your testing.
Repeat these steps to add more tracks if required.
To send the active tracks, select the Send Tracks button.
To include rule Ids in the track broken rule data, select the required rules from the rule list before sending the tracks.
Once you have added a track, you can easily change the track attributes by selecting it in the list and then changing the attributes in the Tracks form. This allows you to add multiple tracks with the ability to update them as required. The tracks will remain editable even after you have selected Send Tracks. Each time you select Send Tracks the same tracks will be sent but with whatever values have been set in the Tracks form. This gives you the ability to simulate a moving track.
To Remove a Track
Select one or more tracks from the active tracks list by using the Remove checkbox column.
Select the Clear Tracks button.
Highways Simulator
The included Highways Simulator simulation plugin can be used to set up carriageways and radars and can also be used to create carriageway statistics and highway alarm messages.
If the software won't start then you will need to delete the Highways Integration Simulator folder and then the Integration Simulator should create a new default config.
By default, the Highways Simulator creates 2 carriageways with 10 sections each and 5 radars.
Configure Radars
To change the number of radars:
Select Configure Radars to open the Configure Radars dialogue. Here you can choose the number of radars you need:
Click OK.
This will delete all existing radars and create new ones until the desired number is reached. Any integration plugin tied directly to radar or radar entity updates will be affected by this.
Configure Carriageways
To change the number of carriageways and or the number of sections per carriageway:
Select Configure Carriageways to to open the Configure Carriageways dialogue. Here you can change the number of carriageways and sections per carriageway:
Click OK.
This will recreate the carriageways as required. All carriageways will be created 4 lanes and with the default rules; Debris, Person, Queue, Reversing Vehicle, Slow Vehicle and Stopped Vehicle.
By default, carriageways are generated with settings that include an 11 m/s queue threshold, 16 m/s heavy traffic density and a track density queue of 4.
For some integration plugins that are able to output section queue and heavy traffic flags, these criteria will need to be met.
When restarting the system, the last saved configuration will be loaded.
Save Configuration
Select Save Configuration to save the current configuration to file:
You will receive a log message indicating a successful save and where the configuration file has been saved to. It should look something like "C:\ProgramData\Navtech\Highways Integration Simulator\HighwaysSimulatorConfig.xml". C:\ProgramData will be different depending on where your window's application data folder is located.
You can pass configuration from one computer to another using save and load.
Section and Rules
You can now administer the Sections and the Rules for your carriageways to send alarms against carriageway rules by selecting the sections and rules we want to raise the alarm against. Optionally, we can select a lane for the alarms as well. To do this:
Ensure the Sections and Rules tab is open:
Here there will be a list of the sections you have configured with the rules.
You can select sections and the rules that you wish to apply by selecting their check boxes:
In the example above, Section 1 of Lane 1 has been chosen with a variety of rules. The Auto Acknowledge check box has been selected by default.
Add Alarms
You can now add your selection to the alarm list.
Click the Add Alarms button:
This will add each of the rules for the section to the Alarms List as highted above.
Selecting the check box on the Alarms List toolbar will select or deselect all of the checkboxes below it:
Alternatively, you can select individual rows in the list.
Send Alarms
The alarms are only sent to the enabled integration plugins.
To send an alarm:
Click the Send Alarms button:
In this example, the ICD-100 XML Plugin has been enabled and the Log Panel shows that the 6 alarms have been sent (highlighted in pink).
The alarm simulator contains the same limitations as the actual Witness 4 system in that only one alarm can be raised for each rule and section combination and does not generate separate alarms for different lanes.
Clear Alarms
To clear the alarms:
Click the Clear Alarms button; you can select all alarms by selecting the checkbox in the column header or select individual alarms:
As the Auto Acknowledge check box has been selected then clearing the alarms will also acknowledge them as in the example above.
If the Auto Acknowledge check box has not been selected:
Clicking on the Clear Alarms button will clear the alarms but not auto acknowledge them:
Acknowledge Alarms
To manually acknowledge the alarms:
Select the alarms you wish to acknowledge which will enable the Acknowledge Alarms button:
This will then clear the alarms from the list:
Delete Alarms
You can delete a single or multiple alarms:
Select the alarm or alarms from the list and click the Delete Alarms button:
The selected alarms will be removed:
Send Statistics
You can use the commands available in the Carriageway Statistics section to send statistics or Traffic Analysis reports.
Click Send Statistics: this will will send randomly generated statistics for each section of the selected carriageway. You can change the selected carriageway from the Carriageway dropdown:
These statistics will be displayed within the Log Panel, as above.
Clear Traffic
To send stats for every section of the selected carriageway with no traffic:
Click the Clear Traffic button. This will also raise the flag that the entire carriageway is clear of traffic.
Send Section TA
If any section has been selected in the Section and Rules tab you can send out Traffic Analysis messages:
Click the Send Section TA button:
This will send out a randomized traffic analysis message with reports for the selected sections. In the above example it has sent out messages for section 1.
Send Clear TA
To see a message showing that there is no traffic within a section:
Click Send Clear TA to send a traffic analysis message for all of the selected sections in the Section and Rules tab:
