A template-based data specification framework for modeling physical security systems

Simulation studies often fail to provide any useful result due to its success being highly dependent on the skills of the analyst to understand a system and then correctly identify all the required data parameters and dependent variables. This paper describes a template-based framework to help identify and specify the components and data parameters for developing models of physical security systems. The layered framework consists of 15 templates built on top of 14 data primitives representing 119 data parameters. The modeling framework has been programmed as an internet-based web application and is simulation language-independent. The usefulness of the framework was tested and shown to have a significant impact on improving the identification of system components and their associated data parameters.