An approach to integrate inter-dependent simulations using HLA with applications to sustainable urban development

Challenges such as understanding sustainable urban development require modeling interdependencies and interactions among systems. The High Level Architecture (HLA) provides an approach to studying these aspects by integrating separately developed simulations in a distributed computing environment. These applications require coupling interdependent simulations and sequencing their execution to ensure certain data dependence requirements are met. An approach to specifying the proper sequence of execution of interdependent simulations using SysML sequence diagrams is proposed. A means to implement these specifications by automatically generating code using HLA's time management services is described. This approach is demonstrated through the creation of a federated simulation to model interactions among land use, transportation, and transit in the San Diego area by integrating widely used simulators such as UrbanSim and MATSim.