1. Modeling and Simulation of Systems of Systems

This book is about modeling and simulation in support “virtual build and test” of Systems of Systems (SoS) which include complex information-technology-based business, engineering, military systems, as well as the societal infrastructures they support. Such systems are at the root of this century’s global challenges of interacting economic crises, world-wide crop failures, extreme effects of climate change, and out-of-control viral epidemics. The book builds upon the material in the earlier books but goes beyond them in several critical ways. It centers on the unifying theme of “virtual build and test” as a means of integrating and providing context to the various technical concepts and tools discussed. In doing so, it provides an inclusive exposition of the many aspects of DEVS-based concepts and tools, all relating back to the “virtual build and test” theme. In particular, Chaps. 2–8 offer a step-by-step introduction to DEVS concepts and corresponding DEVS Modeling Environment (MS4 Me™) features that enable you to gain hands-on experience with the concepts to build sophisticated SoS models. A User Reference to the features of MS4 Me™ accompanies this book and is also sold by the publisher. The software itself is available from MS4 Systems (http://​ms4systems.​com). Chapters 9–12 develop more advanced concepts for modeling and simulation of SoS and illustrate them with MS4 Me™ features developed earlier. Chapters 13–18 discuss applications of the concepts to virtual build and test for a variety of SoS application domains using the capabilities of CoSMoS/DEVS-Suite and VLE as well as MS4 Me™.

Exercises to reinforce the concepts, to encourage using the three sets of tools, and to compare their capabilities are provided throughout the book. The primary target for this book is both practitioners and academics (professors and students). Practitioners include simulation software developers supporting system development, systems engineers designing and architecting systems, and managers of such projects. The technical level aimed at first or second year graduate students is augmented with introductory and summary sections that aim at the more general level so managers and others can skim over technical parts.