High Level Architecture

History and versions[edit] HLA was initiated in the early 1990’s when Dr. Anita K. Jones, the Director of Defense Research and Engineering within the US Department of Defense, gave the Defense Modeling and Simulation Office (DMSO) the task of “assuring interoperability and reusability of defense models and simulations”[1]. In 1995 DMSO formulated a vision for modeling and simulation and established a modeling and simulation masterplan, which included the High-level Architecture. Two protocols for M&S interoperability already existed: Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS), focusing on real-time platform level simulation with a fixed object model, and Aggregate Level Simulation Protocol (ALSP) focusing on simulation of aggregate with time management, ownership management and flexible object models, called confederation models. The purpose of HLA was to provide one unified standard that would meet the simulation interoperability requirements of all US DoD components. The development of HLA was based on four prototypical federations: the Platform Prototype Federation, the Joint Training Protofederation, the Analysis Protofederation and the Engineering Prototype Federation. The HLA specification was prototyped and refined, until HLA 1.3 was finally released. To facilitate usage outside of the defense community, HLA was then transitioned into an IEEE standard, maintained by Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO). To facilitate the migration for DIS users, a Federation Object Model corresponding to the fixed object model of DIS was also developed as the Real-time Platform Reference FOM (RPR FOM). The following HLA versions exist: