IEEE 1516-2000

This document provides an overview of the High Level Architecture (HLA), defines a family of related HLA documents, and defines the principles of HLA in terms of responsibilities that federates (simulations, supporting utilities, or interfaces to live systems) and federations (sets of federates working together must uphold.

There are many different classes of simulations. Each class has changing application characteristics and each needs to be flexibly supported in order to allow for interoperability and reuse across classes and in order to limit the need to maintain multiple interoperability approaches. The High Level Architecture (HLA) is an integrated architecture which has been developed to provide that common architecture. The related standards need to be considered as a set of products - since changes in one is very likely to have impact on the others.

New IEEE Standard - Superseded. The High Level Architecture (HLA) Framework and Rules is the capstone document fora family of related HLA standards. It defines the HLA, its components, and the rules that outline the responsibilities of HLA federates and federations to ensure a consistent implementation. Simulations are abstractions of the real world, and no one simulation can solve all of the functional needs for the modeling and simulation community. It is anticipated that technology advances will allow for new and different modeling and simulation (M&S) implementations within the framework of the HLA. The standards contained in this architecture are interrelated and need to be considered as a product set, as a change in one is likely to have an impact on the others. As such, the HLA is an integrated approach that has been developed to provide a common architecture for simulation.