A Simulation Model Design Method for Cloud-Based Simulation Environment

Simulation technologies provide necessary validation tools for the conceptual design of complex products involving multiple disciplines. A variety of simulation models are developed in specific organizations or enterprises to verify the design plan, while they are hard to be shared and to be reused. Based on the analysis of several typical solutions to share and reuse different kinds of resources, a simulation model design method is proposed to provide a simple implementation of simulation model reuse for cloud-based simulation environment. This paper firstly creates the simulation models' metamodel and ontology for their universal description. Secondly, four rules are proposed to design/reprogram a simulation model into service-oriented form for its interoperability, and the ontology of service-oriented simulation model is established. Thirdly, the way to call one simulation model and the way to compose several simulation models into a simulation process are elaborated. Finally, a simple case of using this method to design an aircraft dynamic model is elaborated, and a prototype simulation system is constructed, and then a simple simulation process is composed to verify the practicability of the method. The result shows that the new design/reprogram method has big advantages on the compatibility, expansibility, and reusability despite the decreasing efficiency.