Supporting large-scale distributed simulation using HLA

Abstract

This article describes the design of a Web-based environment to support large-scale distributed simulation using Java and IEEE standard P1516 high level architecture (HLA) framework and rules. Based on the run-time infrastructure (RTI) services within the HLA and Java application programmer's interfaces (APIs) of the RTI, the proposed HLA-based environment provides an architectural foundation to enhance interactivity, portability, and interoperability for Web-based simulations. In addition, the proposed architectural design not only provides a client/server mechanism for simulation on the Web, but also supports a distributed federation execution over the network. A 3-level control mechanism (3LCM) was implemented to HLA-based middleware federateServer, in order to adaptively maintain information consistency and minimize message traffic for distributing information among client hosts and the federateServers. A dynamic filtering strategy (DFS), associated with the data distribution management (DDM) in the HLA RTI, is proposed to minimize false positive updates and enhance the filtering efficiency of subscription regions within an HLA federation. To verify the feasibility of this prototype, a distributed discrete event simulation application in Java was developed and performance of the proposed modeling design and Java RMI's distributed object model presented. From the experimental results, we show that the proposed environment based on HLA using 3LCM and DFS is workable and practical for supporting a large-scale distributed simulation.