A Model-Driven Approach for Evaluating System of Systems

To reduce the cost and risk of the development of system of systems (SoS) by pre-evaluation before the SoS is built, a model-driven approach is proposed to evaluate the SoS based on its architecture, especially focused on measures of performance and effectiveness. In order to implement the pre-evaluation, the system architecture needs to be transformed to the simulation model of the system under the directing of the evaluation requirement model, then the evaluation can be done based on the evaluation model and the data from simulation. The architecture, evaluation requirement model, simulation model and evaluation model involved in the above process constitute the model system (a set of models related with each other) of our approach. Through the modeling activities based on the model system, we can implement the systematically pre-evaluation of SoS. The model system and its meta-model, which are the core of our approach, are detailed after the introduction of the framework of our approach. Then the transformations from DoDAF architecture to evaluation requirement model and simulation model are studied for accelerating the evaluation process. The case study shows that our approach can not only ensure the standardization and systematization of the evaluating process, but can improve the evaluating efficiency and creditability based on the proposed transformation method.