Model-driven Semantic Engineering Techniques For Equipment Simulation Modeling

A recent approach to tackle the ever increasing complexity of military simulation system is model-driven engineering(MDE).However,its use is mostly limited to produce many simulation software tools,and it is rarely used to perform formal analysis at a model level,leading to a low degree of simulation model engineering.Hence,it is a real challenge to describe simulation models formally,and to improve the semantic composability that exists between different models,so as to reuse existing model assets and simulation services.For this purpose,this thesis presents contributions in three aspects,and effectiveness simulation is applied as its background.Ontological metamodeling within MDE.A benefit is that since the composable information contained in different simulation models conforms to a common ontological metamodel,it enables the precise description of syntax and semantics.In addition,an introduction of the ontological metamodel into MDE provides semantic composability with an engineering context,which is vital to improve the efficiency and quality of military simulation projects.A ‘three-decomposition plus two-layer’ architecture for military simulation system specification.Separation of concerns and raising the level of abstraction are two effective ways to weave the proposed architecture.One one hand,the extraction of commonalities/generalities benefits from the proper system decomposition.On the other,it is possible to prescribe the decomposition with a high level language.Furthermore,it is necessary to explore methodologies for customizing a language at a suitable level of abstraction,etc.general-purpose modeling,domain-specific modeling,and domain-specific metamodeling.Formal model transformations based on MDA(Model-Driven Architecture).Formal theories of model transformations are vital to transform models represented by various modeling languages into other formalisms that have precise definitions of semantics until they reach final executable simulation models.After that,a military simulation system in support of engineering modeling and composable simulation is demonstrated to integrate and reuse those executable simulation models.In general,many of the success of MDE to improve the degree of simulation model engineering are dependent on the descriptive power of modeling languages and how conceptual models are transformed toward final implementations.All solutions discussed in this thesis adhere to two key MDE technologies,i.e.metamodeling and model transformation,blending together to build the technological infrastructure of this thesis.This can enhance simulation models composability and reuse,which is illustrated by an efficient integration of multiple simulation applications on a weapon effectiveness simulation system platform.