The 1999 Spring Simulation Interoperability Workshop (SIW) Exhibits offered participants an opportunity to see the new products on the market.
Mr. Eric Keck (left), JADS Technical Advisor, and AF Lt Col Mark McCall (center), JADS' Air Force Deputy talk with conference attendee.
The 1999 Spring Simulation Interoperability Workshop (SIW) began Sunday afternoon, 14 March, with Tutorials. Jeff Steinman and Lois Yu of Metron led one of the tutorials titled "Adapting Your Simulation To Use HLA" which was designed to aid in the planning the adaptation of legacy simulations to use HLA. Another tutorial offered was "Use of Automated Tools to Support HLA Object Model Development" led by Bob Lutz, JHU APL and Roy Scrudder, UT ARL. The main focus of this tutorial was on the growing capabilities of the HLA Object Model Tool Suite. Katherine Morse of SAIC led another tutorial titled "Data Distribution Management in the HLA" which provided a comprehensive introduction to the HLA Data Distribution Management (DDM) services. One additional tutorial offered was "Creating Simulations in HLA/RTI using the DEVS Modeling Framework" led by Bernard Zeigler and Hessam Sarjoughian of the University of Arizona. This tutorial the basic concepts of DEVS are explained, followed by a presentation of how the DEVS framework assists developers in creating distributed simulations. Monday morning brought the Focus Sessions. One of the sessions, the Newcomers Session, is offered by SISO every Workshop and is designed for those who have not previously attended a SISO Simulation Interoperability Workshop. The session's goal is to help the new attendee gain maximum benefit from the Workshop and from participation in SISO. A session on Simulation Based Acquisition (SBA) was held and designed to provide a big picture outlook of ongoing SBA developments, issues, lessons learned, economic benefits, and emerging markets. The Simulation Interoperability Through Components (SITC) session was held and was designed to address the use of component technology to support simulation interoperability. The goal of the session is to illuminate the use of components over the whole simulation life cycle, from the federation requirements, through federation design, to implementation. A technical update on the IEEE 1516 (HLA Standards) was also held to provide information on the progress that has been made over the past year.
The Monday afternoon Plenary Session included presentations on topics of broad interest to the SISO community. Major General George F. Close, Jr. (US Army) was the keynote speaker. General Close is the Director for Operational Plans and Interoperability, J-7, the Joint Staff, Washington, D.C. His presentation was titled "Operationalizing JV2010" and is currently available on SISO website (17 megs). General Thomas S. Moorman, Jr. (USAF, Ret) has recently joined Booz-Allen Hamilton as a Vice President after serving over 35 years in the United States Air Force. Dr. James E. Heath (US Army LIWA), the Army's Senior Intelligence and Technical Advisor for Information Operations was the Special Interest Speaker. Dr. Heath's presentation is also available on the SISO site and is titled "Land Information Warfare Activity" (11 megs).
COL Smith and Dr. Heath
The SIW Forum Sessions were held during the rest of the week as well as some additional Special Sessions. On Monday night a Special Session titled SPEEDES - Synchronous Parallel Environment for Emulation and Discrete-Event Simulation presented by Jeff Steinman of Metron was held. SPEEDES is a government-owned, NASA-patented, optimistic simulation framework that is currently supporting several large DoD simulation projects including the Joint Simulation System (core infrastructure for the enterprise), Wargame 2000 (modeling framework), and the High-Performance Computing Modernization Office (HLA on high-performance computers). A Special Session on "Synthetic Environment Data Representation and Interchange Specification (SEDRIS)" was offered and described SEDRIS as the mechanism for representing the natural environment data found in a variety of simulation and non-simulation applications. On Tuesday night the International Program Reports were held which provides everyone the opportunity to hear and learn about goals, achievements, and issues arising from programs and projects outside the U.S. The Non-HLA Applications Session was held to discuss the other architectures and protocols are also in use. The first Simulation Interoperability Standards Committee (SISC) meeting was held Wednesday evening. The meeting was held to officially establish SISC as a committee under the IEEE Computer Society as well as to discuss the plans for the IEEE P1516 Standards. The 1999 Spring SIW ended Friday morning with one of the most important sessions of the week - the Outbrief. Each Forum makes specific recommendations for future SISO Workshops and Standards activities. This session provides an excellent overview of the current state of the art and major issues in simulation interoperability. The Outbrief Summary Points are developed from this session.
Taking a Break at SIW!