Service-oriented simulations for enhancing situation awareness
Gary Shao, Robert M. McGraw · Spring Simulation Multiconference · 2009
All of the military services are actively seeking improved tools and methods for providing warfighters with improved situation awareness of battlefield conditions. RAM Laboratories is working to emphasize the advantages of moving simulation activities away from big, complex, vertically integrated simulation systems running on dedicated high-powered platforms. We are moving instead towards a new model of service-oriented simulation providing access to modular domain-specific simulation models that fully support dynamic composition and varying patterns of connectivity between multiple light-weight nodes. These distributed simulation capabilities can be readily combined with advanced analysis techniques, including knowledge inferencing and hypothesis testing, within a service-oriented architecture (SOA) framework to provide situation awareness solutions that are robust and resilient to the effects of incomplete and unreliable data sources.The paper discusses the design of a service-oriented simulation software framework as part of a broader approach towards generating improved levels of actionable views of situation awareness; an approach that aligns and scales with current trends towards the increased use of SOA and cloud computing technologies. The paper describes design features that enable powerful and flexible access to distributed simulation capabilities, increased opportunities for software component reuse, and rapid development and deployment of new applications utilizing multiple levels of simulation capabilities.