Our European team are helping supporting the first UK joint team to enter the SISO Simulation Smackdown in San Diego next month!

The Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) in cooperation with NASA have developed the SISO Simulation Smackdown.  The goal of Smackdown is to provide the opportunity for student teams across the world to gain skills in distributed simulation using software based on the High Level Architecture (HLA) standard (IEEE 1516).

The HLA is the defacto standard for distributed simulation. A HLA federation comprises of individual simulations executing on local computers (referred to as HLA federates) which share data and events in a time-synchronised manner with the other federates, thus making it possible to execute large and complex simulations in a distributed environment, facilitating model interoperability, among others.

The SISO Simulation Smackdown scenario is based in space!  Teams build simulation components that interact via the HLA software and include lunar rovers, asteroids, regolith haulers, spaceships and satellites.  With support from SIMUL8, Brunel University and the University of Exeter Business School are leading the first UK joint team with a Lunar Fabrication Factory.

This has been inspired by developments in 3D printing by many a 3d printing service and will simulate the provision of air and building materials for a lunar base.  With much work leading up to the event, the SISO Smackdown will take place at SpringSim 2013 in San Diego.

Simon Taylor, Brunel University
Navonil Mustafee, University of Exeter Business School