Creation and usage of collaborative workflow templates in distributed simulation

Abstract

Collaborative Technologies are an innovative area of endeavor that allows engineering teams to define, integrate and conduct distributed simulation experiments as part of a structured, repeatable process. Workflow techniques can be employed to capture, and frequently automate, internal processes and data flow necessary to answer questions within a wide variety of application domains. Workflow implementations can be constructed in a generalized fashion to provide a working process template to address a focused topic area. These templates define the basic scope and tenants of an experimental domain - as well as any required model sets - and allow extensive exploration within the envelope of that scope. One such template was constructed and used to answer questions postulated by the Global Awareness Virtual Test Bed (GAVTB). The domain for this template involved a study of the effects of information superiority on prosecution of time critical targets (TCT's). This experiment and Workflow template are used as an example case to highlight the approach and application of collaborative techniques in developing Workflow templates addressing multiple levels of Distributed Simulation.