ABSTRACT
Discrete Event Systems Specification (DEVS) environments such as DEVSJAVA, DEVS-C++, and others (ACIMS) are embedded in object-oriented implementations; they support the goal of representing executable model architectures in an objectoriented representational language. As a mathematical formalism, DEVS is platform independent, and its implementations adhere to the DEVS protocol so that DEVS models easily translate from one form (e.g., C++) to another (e.g., Java) (Zeigler et al., 2000). Moreover, DEVS environments, such as DEVSJAVA, execute on commercial, off-the-shelf desktops or workstations and employ state-of-the-art libraries to produce graphical output that complies with industry and international standards. DEVS environments are typically open architectures that have been extended to execute on various middleware such as the Department of Defense’s (DoD) High Level Architecture (HLA) standard, Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and others and can be readily interfaced to other engineering and simulation and modeling tools (ACIMS, n.d.; Cho et al., 2001; Hu & Zeigler, 2005; Wainer & Giambiasi, 2001; Zhang et al., 2005). Furthermore, DEVS operation over web middleware (SOAP) enables it to fully participate in the netcentric environment of the Global Information Grid/Service-Oriented Architecture (GIG/SOA) (Atkinson, 2004). As a result of recent advances, DEVS can support model continuity through a simulation-based development and testing life cycle (Hu & Zeigler, 2005). This means that the mapping of high-level requirement specifications to lower-level DEVS formalizations enables such specifications to be thoroughly tested in virtual simulation environments before being easily and consistently transitioned to operate in a real environment for further testing and fielding.
