The software architecture of the real-time on-line decision support system "RODOS"

The RODOS project aims at the development of an integrated and comprehensive real-time on-line decision support system for off-site emergency management of nuclear accidents in Europe, applicable for the vicinity of the release and the early phase up to far distant areas and the later stages of an accident. As a joint venture of some 20 European Union institutes closely co-operating with institutes in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and East-Central Europe, the project is to provide the methodological basis, develop models, collect data and install the hardware and software framework of the RODOS system. The paper will describe the architecture of the RODOS software framework as a tool for processing and managing a large variety of different types of information, including those which are categorised in terms of meteorology, radiology, economy, emergency actions and countermeasures, rules, preferences, facts, maps, statistics, catalogues, models and methods. The conceptual design of the software structure based on the Client-Server model and the practical co-operation between a set of autonomous applications meeting the user requirements and objectives are discussed. Details of co-operation management are described by explaining the concepts of the inter-module communication, data exchange, control of operation and data model. Finally the possibilities of extending the functionality of the system by integrating new applications are shown.