Ontology Based Collaborative Simulation Framework Using HLA and Web Services

Distributed M&S (modeling and simulation) plays an important role in simulation of engineering and manufacturing process in the past few years. HLA (High level architecture) and Web service make distributed M&S available in a network centric environment, integrating heterogeneous simulations and legacy models. But physical communication and interoperation enabled by HLA need to be enhanced in semantic level. Ontology has natural advantage in building shared knowledge and domain model. It is used to realize semantic interoperability and enable reusability of legacy models. In this paper, collaborative simulation ontology, and a multi-layers ontology structure are introduced. Then we propose ontology based collaborative M&S framework using HLA and web service in complex product design to meet the requirement of modern distributed M&S.