ISI's (Information Sciences Institute) SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) Architecture Simulator: An Experiment in Adding New Software to the System

摘要

The design of ISI's SDI architecture simulator was intended to minimize the software development necessary to add new simulation models to the system or to refine the detail of existing ones. The key software design approach used to accomplish this goal was the modeling of each simulated defense system component by a software object called a 'technology module.' Each technology module provided a carefully defined abstract interface between the component model and the rest of the simulation system, particularly the simulation models of battle managers. This report documents our first test of the validity of this software design approach. A new technology module modeling a kinetic kill vehicle' (KKV) was added to the simulator. Although this technology module had an impact on several parts of the simulation system in the form of new data structures and functions that had to be created, the integration of the new module was accomplished without the necessity of replacing any existing code. Keywords: Discrete-event simulation; Modular software design; Object oriented programming, SDI architecture; Software engineering; Strategic Defense Initiative. (EDC)