Low-cost high-fidelity flight simulators such as Microsoft Flight Simulator® (MSFS), Flightgear® and X-Plane® are popularly used in standalone and small simulations. These Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) flight simulators generally have well-defined and implemented flight models, scenery data for most of the globe and a large, extensible set of quality three dimensional models for visualisation.
They have, however, been traditionally difficult to integrate into larger distributed simulations such as those used in air traffic management and air defence training environments.
SMS Defence Solutions has answered the call through development of a distributed simulation gateway that provides a link between Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) flight simulators and distributed simulation systems. In the case of Microsoft Flight Simulator, this has been achieved by mapping the DirectPlay protocol within the DirectX Application Programming Interface, which in turn provides future compatibility with other DirectX based software.
SMS Defence Solutions HLA and DIS Gateway Interfaces
Human In The Loop or Stealth Viewer
The SMS Defence Solutions HLA/DIS Gateway publishes entity state information sourced from each flight simulator instance into DIS and HLA environments to provide a high fidelity human-in-the-loop interaction with the existing simulation.
Alternatively, the entity state publication can be toggled off, essentially allowing the flight simulator to be used as a simple stealth viewer, displaying the entity information being exchanged in a simulation network.
Simultaneous Support for HLA and DIS
With the SMS Defence Solutions Gateway, it is possible to link both HLA and DIS networks into the one flight simulator instance concurrently. Interfaces into the DIS and HLA protocols have been developed as modules and can be linked at run-time to provide easily configurable systems.
Call sign and entity identification mapping is provided to easily determine the source of each rendered object in the session.