Engineering Principles of Combat Modeling and Distributed Simulation

Andreas Tolk

Feb 2012 · Sold by John Wiley & Sons

About this ebook

Explore the military and combat applications of modeling and simulation

Engineering Principles of Combat Modeling and Distributed Simulation is the first book of its kind to address the three perspectives that simulation engineers must master for successful military and defense related modeling: the operational view (what needs to be modeled); the conceptual view (how to do combat modeling); and the technical view (how to conduct distributed simulation). Through methods from the fields of operations research, computer science, and engineering, readers are guided through the history, current training practices, and modern methodology related to combat modeling and distributed simulation systems. Comprised of contributions from leading international researchers and practitioners, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the engineering principles and state-of-the-art methods needed to address the many facets of combat modeling and distributed simulation and features the following four sections:

• Foundations introduces relevant topics and recommended practices, providing the needed basis for understanding the challenges associated with combat modeling and distributed simulation.
• Combat Modeling focuses on the challenges in human, social, cultural, and behavioral modeling such as the core processes of "move, shoot, look, and communicate" within a synthetic environment and also equips readers with the knowledge to fully understand the related concepts and limitations.
• Distributed Simulation introduces the main challenges of advanced distributed simulation, outlines the basics of validation and verification, and exhibits how these systems can support the operational environment of the warfighter.
• Advanced Topics highlights new and developing special topic areas, including mathematical applications fo combat modeling; combat modeling with high-level architecture and base object models; and virtual and interactive digital worlds.

Featuring practical examples and applications relevant to industrial and government audiences, Engineering Principles of Combat Modeling and Distributed Simulation is an excellent resource for researchers and practitioners in the fields of operations research, military modeling, simulation, and computer science. Extensively classroom tested, the book is also ideal for courses on modeling and simulation; systems engineering; and combat modeling at the graduate level.

Ratings and reviews

I was very much surprised how much general information is provided in this book. I expected this to be a book for industry programmers supporting armed forces with simulators and simulation systems, but the author provides way more information on standards, what they cover, and why you need them. There is hardly any code and few algorithms on how to compute a firefight in this book. The emphasis lies on understanding what needs to be done, not giving many examples on how to do it. I actually learned a couple of new relations between the various approaches to combat modeling. Also I expected something else, I found this information to be very useful. The second part is a little treasure by itself, as it is a who-is-who in defense modeling and simulation. If you work in this domain, you know the names well. To have the originators of often competing ideas - like TENA and HLA - both contributing a chapter on their view and provide them side by side is very helpful. This is not a programmers handbook, but I hope that many people that have to manage simulation events for the armed forces will get access to this book.

About the author

ANDREAS TOLK, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering at Old Dominion University. He supported the development of the discipline of modeling and simulation with his publications for a variety of modeling and simulation conferences as well as his contributions to various NATO research activities in the domains of combat modeling, command and control, and studies and analysis.