Executable Model Development from Architectural Description with Application to the Time Sensitive Target Problem

As the Department of Defense (DoD) moves to a capability based approach for requirements definition and system development, it has become necessary to conceptualize and evaluate our needs at the System of System (SoS) level. Desired capabilities are often achievable only through seamless integration of many different systems. As the classical system engineering approaches are not suited to effectively handle the complexity of SoS level concepts, an architectures-driven approach has emerged as a way of defining and evaluating these new concepts. While the use of architectures for documenting and tracking interfaces and interoperability concerns is generally understood, architectural analysis and the use of executable models for evaluation of architectures remain an open area of research. With this purpose in mind, this thesis will apply architectural-based analysis to the proposed Time Sensitive Effect Operation (TSEO2012) scenario. This scenario will become the baseline for architectural analysis, and an excursion to this baseline will add a Weapon Born Battle Damage Assessment (WBBDA) capability. By creating an executable model, the two architectural concepts can be compared against each other. The addition of a WBBDA capability to the TSEO architecture improves the efficiency of the time sensitive target operations by shortening the decision cycle for target re-strike. While this effort was successful in obtaining an executable model directly from the architecture description, it highlighted the importance of having sufficient and correct information contained in the architecture products.