Navies from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom collaborated to develop and validate a distributed simulation of ship replenishment at sea. The simulation models the seaway, ship motions including hydrodynamic interaction effects between ships, and the transfer of a solid payload between ships using replenishment gear. The simulation was developed using the High Level Architecture (HLA), which facilitates sharing of data and synchronization of simulation time among software components on networked computers. Simulation results were validated using experimental data. The project demonstrated successful application of distributed simulation to complex naval platform systems. Lessons learned are shared for several areas, including seaway modelling, ship hydrodynamic interaction, and planning of model tests and sea trials for simulation validation.
