SBIR-STTR Award

Modasco proposes to extend the capability of Colored Petri Net design and architecture specification tools to include model performance measurement and evaluation. The methodology is based upon an automated simulation of the system executed within a controllable run-time interface. A graphical language is proposed for describing the complex logic and mathematical relationships of transitions between system states. Integrating graphical design, model architecture specification and simulation capabilities into one tool provides a highly-efficient way of performing end-to-end virtual prototyping of a proposed system architecture that avoids the need to create artificial interfaces among several specialized tools. The system designer can also define performance metrics with the rule-based design interface, store them for future application and assign them to model architectures. During the execution of a model's simulation, the values of assigned metrics are updated and displayed to the analyst. This tool will significantly reduce the time and cost currently required to create and update model simulations and thus will produce system designs that are more robust and whose properties are better understood. The proposed system is directly applicable to the collaborative development of large scale systems by remote teams of specialists whose designs can be integrated and evaluated in operational conditions.

Benefits:
Decrease the development time and cost for prototyping new systems. The proposed software tools are directly applicable to the design and analysis of commercial and military processes including information systems, health care, economic forecasting, software and hardware.

Modasco proposes extending the capability of its architectural modeling toolkit to include model execution and evaluation. Visual Simulation Objects (VSO) represents complex systems as Colored Petri Nets (CPNs) that form the basis for simulating the performance of large, concurrently-firing systems. This enhancement will allow mathematically complex business rules to be embedded in a design, thereby creating a dynamic representation of a system. Alternate virtual prototypes can then be evaluated quantitatively before physical prototyping begins. VSO's open architecture makes it uniquely capable of integrating legacy systems with current modeling initiatives, thus preserving the work of the past several decades. Modasco also proposes to tailor the modeling and simulation environment of VSO to the C4ISR Framework. This will produce more complete, robust and validated designs that can be described to stakeholders using a standard set of representational views. The VSO language has simple-to-learn, simple-to-use semantics and syntax. Subject matter experts will be able to design complex systems with minimal assistance from computer specialists. The enhanced version of VSO will be widely applicable to commercial, military and academic problems. Products will be brought to the marketplace quicker and with less risk and allow decision making to become a science rather than an art.

Keywords:
Modeling And Simulation, Model Architecture Execution, Colored Petri Nets, Collaborative Virtual Prototyping, Verification And Validation, Comman