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With MITRE's help, the Defense Modeling and Simulation Office (DMSO) is leading a Defense Department-wide effort to establish a Common Technical Framework to make simulations interoperate with each other and with C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence) systems. The High Level Architecture (HLA), as a component of the Common Technical Framework, provides the structural basis for interoperability.

What is the High Level Architecture?
The HLA integrates simulations and associated components. The HLA Rules describe guidelines for applying HLA to practical applications.

The HLA is a way of describing the important aspects of simulation integration. The HLA Object Model Template makes sure that all elements are considered in an integrated federation.

The HLA integrates federates into a federation. The HLA Interface Specification specifies a standard interface to infrastructure software services that facilitate interoperability. MITRE developed the original prototype of that software, which is called the Runtime Infrastructure (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Runtime Infrastructure binds HLA federates

What Has Been Done?
The HLA began with military and industry efforts to integrate simulations. Through its work on two of these earlier integrations (the Aggregate Level Simulation Protocol and the Distributed Interactive Simulation), MITRE became an early participant in developing HLA. Taking the best from these initial integrations, the DMSO team with its MITRE technical staff members devised and developed the concepts at the heart of the HLA.

A group of military and industry leaders formed an Architecture Management Group to decide how to apply the HLA. DMSO developed the initial specifications, and the Group directed prototyping efforts to prove the concepts. After creating a rapid prototype (using CORBA) of the Runtime Infrastructure, DMSO fielded two versions.

DMSO sponsored construction of five federations, integrating and modeling existing simulations to work within the HLA. This required representatives from the domains--staff training, tactical training, engineering, test and evaluation, and analysis--to work together to solve common technical issues. Participating in the federations, MITRE applied its knowledge of simulation and integration to domain-specific issues.

DARPA adapted the HLA to use in its Synthetic Theater of War (STOW) program. This adaptation addressed the specific scalability challenges of the STOW program by implementing a tailored Runtime Infrastructure and STOW-specific support tools.

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