ABC+: extended action-benefit-cost modeling with knowledge-based decision-making and interaction model for system of systems simulation

The system of systems (SoS) is a large-scale and complex system composed of autonomous and independent constituent systems (CSs). It deals with complex requirements as SoS-level goals that are not able to be satisfied by a single CS. To analyze SoS-level behaviors considering CSs' autonomy and independence, SoS-level engineers need to model and simulate an SoS properly. Action-Benefit-Cost (ABC) modeling provides an effective and efficient way to model and simulate the autonomous and independent behaviors of CSs by focusing on their external actions, benefits, and costs. However, ABC modeling does not support internal-knowledge of a CS. In addition, ABC modeling does not support communications between CSs. SoS engineers also have difficulty in reflecting all possible interaction into models in advance of simulation. In this paper, we propose ABC+ modeling, which supports the three-phased knowledge-based decision-making and the message-based interaction models. The case study shows that ABC+ modeling improves the expressiveness of SoS models and lets SoS-level behavior simulation by different interaction patterns be possible, which cannot be even represented in ABC modeling. The simulation execution time is examined about both ABC and ABC+ modeling.