KBSI is researching and developing a High-Output Training With INtegrated Gaming Support (HOTWINGS) system that provides a shareable, game-based objects gateway (SGOG) for Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) and High Level Architecture (HLA) integration.  This type of gateway would enable the integration of lighter game-based training systems with full-scale simulation systems, creating a richer and more efficient web of training systems.

The Air Force utilizes an array of training systems for training personnel: live systems (involving real people operating real systems like aircraft), virtual systems (involving real people operating simulated systems like flight simulators), and fully simulated constructive systems (involving a computer system that is designed to mimic the combat techniques of an enemy pilot).  The benefits of these systems can be best realized when the systems are networked together in a synergistic fashion.  For large, full-scale simulation systems, this type of networking occurs via two common protocols:  Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) and High Level Architecture (HLA), both of which are also used in many live systems.

The HOTWINGS initiative is developing an easy-to-use, easy-to-configure, easy-to-maintain method for integrating lighter game-based systems with full-scale DIS- or HLA-based simulation systems. This capability would benefit the Air Force by enabling the integration and synergistic operation of different training systems and in the creation of a web of constructive and virtual training models that are more inexpensive to develop and more efficient. 

Another benefit is the opportunity to incorporate a Learning Management System (LMS) into the distributed training environment.  Through an LMS, instructors, courseware designers, and students are able to fully utilize all of the simulated and real temporo-spatial aspects of a training exercise, allowing them to maintain metrics for developing new training exercises and refining existing ones.  Enhanced integration technology would also permit gaming systems to be incorporated with HLA-enabled planning simulation systems such as the JSAF and OneSAF simulation environments.