Evolution of the Standard Simulation Architecture

This paper proposes the standardization of a layered simulation architecture that addresses many of the critical modeling needs of the DoD simulation community. The Standard Simulation Architecture works with HLA to provide the additional infrastructure that is necessary for developing highly interacting yet decoupled software models, while simultaneously supporting technology infusion from R&D organizations. The overall goal is to provide a costeffective solution that features complete flexibility for simulation systems without sacrificing performance. A layered architecture is proposed to modularize critical capabilities such as high-speed communications between nodes in a multiprocessing federate, general-purpose software utilities, modeling semantics, support for human behavior representation, time management, interest management, and automated interoperability with HLA. The interface of each layer must be standardized to promote (1) model development, (2) portability and interoperability with other models, (3) scalable high performance, and (4) technology infusion from the research community. The Standard Simulation Architecture extends interoperability and reuse principles taken from the High Level Architecture to (1) the entities residing within a multiprocessing federate and to (2) the components hierarchically residing within an entity or within other components. This standardized hierarchical modeling paradigm promotes the development of a reusable entity and component repository that can be reused to support different modeling applications.