Standards for Simulation: As Simple As Possible But Not Simpler The High Level Architecture For Simulation

Abstract

The High Level Architecture (HLA) is an architec ture for reuse and interoperation of simulations. It is based on the premise that no simulation can satisfy all uses and users. An individual simulation or set of simulations developed for one purpose can be applied to another application under the HLA concept of the federation: a composable set of interacting simula tions. The intent of the HLA is a structure which will support reuse of capabilities available in differ ent simulations, ultimately reducing the cost and time required to create a synthetic environment for a new purpose, and the possibility of distributed col laborative development of complex simulation appli cations. The HLA is widely applicable across a full range of simulation application areas. The widely differing application areas indicate the variety of re quirements that have been considered in develop ment and evolution of the HLA. The HLA does not prescribe a specific implementation, nor does it man date the use of any particular software or program ming language. Over time, as technology advances, new and different implementations will be possible within the HLA framework. This paper describes the technical motivations for the HLA, the key elements of the architecture and how they are minimum and essential to the goal of reuse and interoperability.

Massive-Scale Automation in Cyber-Physical Systems: Vision & Challenges

“…Additionally, simulations are often created from a specific viewpoint and any two differing viewpoints may not be compatible. There are a number of standards that have been developed for this problem such as DIS [60], HLA [61], [62], FMI [63] and FDMU [64]. However, none of these satisfy all requirements for the proposed usage above [65], [66].…”

Software Frameworks for Model Composition

“…Simulation standards are those standards that apply to simulation, whether to software, development practices, data definitions, or any other aspect of simulation. Of special interest in this paper are the distributed simulation interoperability protocols, including distributed interactive simulation (DIS) [13], high level architecture (HLA) [14], and test and training enabling architecture (TENA) [15]), which can be understood as both standards and frameworks.…”

“…That data and the transport mechanisms to distribute and deliver it are defined according to the protocol being used. In the terminology of HLA, which is an architecture standard and interoperability protocol for such systems, the simulations are federates and the distributed simulation systems are federations [14]. The federates can run independently, but normally interact during execution by sending and receiving data via network messages.…”

A Federated Simulation Environment for Hybrid Systems

“…X-Sim is a federated distributed simulator, similar to other projects like Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) [7], Aggregate Level Simulation Protocol (ALSP) [13], and the High Level Architecture [2,3,8], where federate simulators are treated as black boxes and few restrictions are applied on their internal operational mechanisms. Individual federate simulators need only conform to the interface specifications to become interoperable.…”