Why Climb the Simulation Pyramid? Push Up Technical Reality, Point Down to Credibility

摘要

Military decision-makers rely heavily on modeling and simulation (M&S) to evaluate and gain insight on the myriad of issues facing the military - from acquisition to force structures decisions, from weapon system performance analyses to sustainability issues. To characterize the fidelity and scope of military constructive M&S, the Department of Defense employs a simulation hierarchical pyramid. The lower levels of the pyramid have a technical/engineering focus (Research, Development, Acquisition - RDA), while the upper levels of the pyramid focus on various aspects of military utility and effectiveness (Advanced Concepts and Requirements - ACR). One of the greatest challenges in military simulation is achieving the needed (credible) fidelity to support the different levels of simulation and associated analyses. Ascending the pyramid increases scope, but reduces fidelity and detail. Due to the trade offs between fidelity and scale; the same systems are being represented throughout the pyramid hierarchy with models that have variations in fidelity. An issue that arises is limited traceability from high fidelity models (RDA domain) to the lower fidelity representations (ACR domain), and because of the implicit characterization and aggregation of effects, it is difficult to determine if the model is providing an accurate representation of the system in its operational context.