APPLICATION OF A MODEL-DRIVEN APPROACH TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF DISTRIBUTED SIMULATIONS: THE ESA HRAF CASE Andrea D’Ambrogio Paolo Bocciarelli Department of Enterprise Engineering University of Rome Tor Vergata Via del Politecnico, 1 00133 Rome, Italy {bocciarelli,dambro}@uniroma2.it Juan Delfa ESA-ECSAT Harwell Campus Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0FD, UK Juan.Delfa@esa.int Aron Kisdi GMV Harwell Campus Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QG, UK akisdi@gmv.com SpringSim’20, May 19-May 21, 2020, Fairfax, VA, USA; c ⃝2020 Society for Modeling & Simulation International (SCS) ABSTRACT The development of complex autonomous robotic systems is critical for building future planetary explo- ration missions at the European Space Agency (ESA). In this context, ESA started the Harwell Robotics and Autonomy Facility (HRAF) project, whose main objective is to provide an effective support for the integra- tion, validation and verification of autonomy components. The HRAF architecture is founded on both HLA (High Level Architecture) as a distributed simulation middleware, and the Distributed Simulation Engineer- ing and Execution Process (DSEEP) as the adopted reference process for building HLA-based simulations. The current Pilot 3 phase of the HRAF development plan deals with the development and validation of a model-driven framework for supporting the semi-automated generation of HLA-based simulations. In this respect, this paper illustrates how model-driven approaches and technologies have been investigated and applied to achieve the HRAF Pilot 3 goals, along with the related implementation and validation issues. Keywords: Simulation, HLA,FOM, Model Transformation, MDA, Acceleo. 1 INTRODUCTION The development of complex and autonomous systems requires the adoption of innovative methods and tools to effectively support developers and other stakeholders in developing safe and effective systems. Mission- critical systems need effective verification and validation (V&V) activities, as well as a timely evaluation of the system’s behaviour since the early stages of the system development life-cycle. This is even more important for space systems involved in future planetary exploration missions.