Handbook of Real-World Applications in Modeling and Simulation

Chapter Eight

Military Interoperability Challenges

Saikou Y. Diallo

José J. Padilla

8.1 Introduction and Learning Objectives

Interoperating heterogeneous systems remain a great challenge in modeling and simulation (M&S) owing to the nature of model-based systems, the existence of a variety of engineering methods, and the lack of a unified formal specification of interoperability. This is especially true in the armed forces as interoperable solutions are highly sought after in order to reuse existing simulations in an effort to save millions of dollars in activities such as training. The model-based nature of systems in M&S impacts interoperation in that each M&S application was designed to support answering a special question or helping to support optimizing well-engineered solutions. In this sense, each M&S application is the reflection of the modeler's perspective on the question at hand and subsequent perspective of a solution. Further, in the early work in M&S, the idea to develop a simulation system in order to integrate it into a synthetic environment and compose it with other independently developed simulation systems, however, has not been common in these early applications. In many application domains of M&S, this is still the case today.

The existence of a variety of engineering methods also adds to the M&S interoperability challenge. In engineering disciplines in general and in military application domains in particular, the federation of simulation systems with each ...