Model-Driven Distributed Simulation Engineering

Simulation-based analysis is widely recognized as an effective technique to support verification and validation of complex systems throughout their lifecycle. The inherently distributed nature of complex systems makes the use of distributed simulation approaches a natural fit. However, the development of a distributed simulation is by itself a challenging task in terms of effort and required know-how. This tutorial introduces an approach that applies highly automated model-driven engineering principles and standards to ease the development of distributed simulations. The proposed approach is framed around the development process defined by the DSEEP (Distributed Simulation Engineering and Execution Process) standard, as applied to distributed simulations based on the HLA (High Level Architecture), and is focused on a chain of automated model transformations. A case study is used in the tutorial to illustrate an example application of the proposed model-driven approach to the development of an HLA-based distributed simulation of a space system.