This is VILLASnode, a gateway for processing and forwarding simulation data between real-time simulators. VILLASnode is a client/server application to connect simulation equipment and software such as:
- OPAL-RT RT-LAB,
- RTDS GTFPGA cards,
- RTDS GTWIF cards,
- Simulink,
- LabView,
- and FPGA models
by using protocols such as:
- IEEE 802.2 Ethernet / IP / UDP,
- ZeroMQ & nanomsg,
- MQTT & AMQP
- WebSockets
- Shared Memory
- Files
- IEC 61850 Sampled Values / GOOSE
- Analog/Digital IO via Comedi drivers
- Infiniband (ibverbs)
It's designed with a focus on very low latency to achieve real-time exchange of simulation data. VILLASnode is used in distributed- and co-simulation scenarios and developed for the field of power grid simulation at the EON Energy Research Center in Aachen, Germany.
User documentation is available here: https://villas.fein-aachen.org/docs/
All contributions are welcome! If you want to contribute to VILLASnode, please visit the contribution guidelines in our documentation.
VILLASnode is licensed on a per-file basis under multiple open-source licenses.
Each source file contains an SPDX license identifier and copyright attribution in accordance with the REUSE Software guidelines.
For attribution, please refer to the SPDX headers in each file.
The Apache 2.0 license covers most of the codebase and is preferred for new contributions.
License compliance is automatically checked in CI, including validation of licenses in the LICENSES/ directory.
We kindly ask all academic publications employing components of VILLASframework to cite one of the following papers:
- A. Monti et al., "A Global Real-Time Superlab: Enabling High Penetration of Power Electronics in the Electric Grid," in IEEE Power Electronics Magazine, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 35-44, Sept. 2018.
- S. Vogel, M. Mirz, L. Razik and A. Monti, "An open solution for next-generation real-time power system simulation," 2017 IEEE Conference on Energy Internet and Energy System Integration (EI2), Beijing, 2017, pp. 1-6.
For other licensing options please consult Prof. Antonello Monti.
- SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2014-2025 The VILLASframework Authors
- SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
- Steffen Vogel [email protected]
- Niklas Eiling [email protected]
- Felix Wege [email protected]
- Alexandra Bach [email protected]
Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems (ACS) EON Energy Research Center (EONERC) RWTH University Aachen, Germany