Use of high-level architecture discrete event simulation in a system of systems design

Systems can be arranged in useful ways to perform tasks which, executed in an order, unlock overall capabilities. The goal of a system of systems engineer is to find the system arrangements and task execution order that allow the system of systems successfully achieving its end goal efficiently. The difficulties in this work are the sheer number of possible arrangements and work flows, uncertain and missing information about systems, and greater flexibility required in evaluation compared to system evaluation. This paper describes a modeling and simulation solution that deals with all the three difficulties enumerated as part of a research work sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. The modeling and simulation solution implemented here is in the form of a discrete event simulation. Because system of systems design involves itself with many missions, the simulation is developed to handle various missions and systems. However, in this paper the use case is a suppression of enemy air defenses mission carried out by a variety of naval military systems.