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/

• MIOB
• DINO

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 the following paper:

• S. Vogel, N. Eiling, M. Pitz, A. Bach, M. Stevic, and P. A. Monti, “VILLASnode: An Open-Source Real-time Multi-protocol Gateway,” Journal of Open Source Software, vol. 10, no. 112, p. 8401, Aug. 2025, doi: 10.21105/joss.08401.

More publications using, or about VILLASnode can be found in the documentation.

For other licensing options please consult Prof. Antonello Monti.

• SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2014-2025 The VILLASframework Authors
• SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

• Steffen Vogel post@steffenvogel.de
• Niklas Eiling niklas@eil.ing
• Felix Wege fwege@eonerc.rwth-aachen.de
• Alexandra Bach alexandra.bach@eonerc.rwth-aachen.de

Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems (ACS) EON Energy Research Center (EONERC) RWTH University Aachen, Germany