The High Level Architecture for Simulations

T Special Issue of SIMULATION is devoted to the “High Level Architecture for Simulation,” with a focus on simulation applications which have been implemented using the HLA. The High Level Architecture (HLA) is a general-purpose software architecture for distributed simulation designed to support a wide range of simulation approaches and applications. The architecture itself is openly available, as is software to support its implementation. It is being used for a variety of simulation applications, including linked high-fidelity simulators for mission rehearsal, Internet games, distributed virtual learning applications for team skill building, large distributed discrete event simulations for training, analysis of international space station developments, and distributed medical applications. These diverse applications are examples of different forms of ‘simulation’ which come from different technical heritages and have historically supported different user communities. With the advent of general-purpose software capabilities such as the HLA, once-isolated technical approaches are beginning to become a readily available part of the simulation developers’ toolkit, opening up new possibilities for simulation applications for new users. This issue includes a series of articles that describe applications of HLA in multiple domains across the international community. “TRAILBLAZER: An Application of the High Level Architecture to Joint Experimentation” describes a project created to examine the application of an HLA federation of simulations to support joint experimentation. In “Developing An HLA Virtual Command Post,” the authors discuss the development an HLA-compliant version of the Virtual Command Post (VCP), a distributed simulation providing a The High Level Architecture for Simulations