HLA Aircraft Simulator

Distributed HLA simulation of an Airbus A320 on final approach to Madrid-Barajas (LEMD), tracked by a ground radar station.

Dependencies

• CMake 3.10+
• GCC with C++17 support
• OpenRTI 0.10.0
• JSBSim 1.2.5

Installing dependencies

sudo apt-get install -y cmake g++ libxml2-dev git pkgconf

Installing OpenRTI

git clone https://github.com/onox/OpenRTI.git
cd OpenRTI
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j8
sudo make install
cd ~

Installing JSBSim

git clone https://github.com/JSBSim-Team/jsbsim.git
cd jsbsim
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON
make -j8
sudo make install
cd ~

Building

git clone https://github.com/RaulDiMont/hla-simulator.git
cd hla-simulator
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j8

Running

The simulator uses OpenRTI's TCP transport (rti://), which requires an RTI node running as a separate process. Open two terminals:

Terminal 1 — RTI node (must be started first):

cd ~/hla-simulator/build
./rtinode -i 0.0.0.0:14321

Terminal 2 — Simulator (once the RTI node is ready):

cd ~/hla-simulator/build
./aircraft_simulator

The RTI node acts as the federation broker. All federates — including the Unreal visualization client — connect through it. Keep both processes running for the duration of the simulation.

Simulation Scenario

• Aircraft: Airbus A320 on final approach to Madrid-Barajas (LEMD)
• Start position: ~62km north of LEMD at 6000ft, heading south at 200 knots
• Radar: Fixed ground station at LEMD (40.4939N, 3.5672W), 60km range
• Duration: 60 updates at 1Hz — aircraft enters radar range at update 8

Architecture

See PROJECT_SUMMARY.md for full architecture and design decisions.

Related Projects

• hla-unreal-visualizer — Unreal Engine 5.5 visualization layer for this simulator