HLA-based object-oriented modeling/simulation for military system

This paper presents an HLA-based Object-oriented modeling/Simulation for Tank-helicopter combat system (HOST) which can be efficiently used for evaluation of tactics and weapon system for tank/helicopter combat. HOST is a distributed combat (tank-to-tank, tank-to-helicopter) simulation based on High Level Architecture (HLA). We design and implement an object-oriented simulation engine which can provide an unified interface to a set of interfaces for entities in HOST by using facade pattern. We design a domain specific object model (DOM) for tank-helicopter combat system based on CMMS (Conceptual Model of the Mission Space) and UML (Unified Modeling Language). We shall show how CMMS can be used to aid the design of use case diagram in UML, and presents various diagrams such as use case, class, sequence, state chart diagram in UML, which help users develop the relevant models in HLA. We shall also show how to adapt the domain specific object model to HLA by the efficient design of FOM (Federation Object Model) and TMM (Time Management Model). TMM provides timestepped, event-driven and optimistic time models in graphic and text modes. In a graphic mode, inner federate time management (Inner-FTM) and inter federate time management (Inter-FTM) are used. Inner-FTM achieves synchronization by coordinating local objects and visualization, and Inter-FTM by coordinating federates and visualization respectively. The object-oriented design of our domain specific object model in HOST provides users with modification, extensibility, flexibility through abstraction, encapsulation and inheritance. Moreover, HLA-based model in HOST allows our system to be plugged in other HLA-compliant system, and extended into more complex system by providing reusability and interoperability.