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Abstract. The major shift in simulation to date has been in
the orientation or role of the participant. In the past,
analysts studied the world as an external reviewer using simulation
to provide insight into the real-world system. Students trained on
replications of systems to learn specific tasks and practice certain
skills with respect to the replicated real-world system. However, the
domain of simulation has now spread to the digitised battlefield.
As a result, through emulation techniques defined by interconnectivity and
interoperability requirements and constraints, we can now climb into the
simulation via the Synthetic Environment (SE) and experience the 'realities'
of the system we are studying or training with. While
in the past, we used training systems to teach specific
tasks, the use of simulation is just beginning to evolve
to emulate an operationally valid, authoritative, real-world environment. This shift
in focus, capability and the participant role has both great
promise and great risk. The promise brings repeatable, safe, visually
accurate, inclusive, seamless, training on demand capability. However, the risk
is in direct correlation to the promise and is associated
with the simulation training system's development process as engineers attempt
to capture the actual real-world environment and create the artificial
digital emulation. The associated risk is that current engineering practices
in both Systems and Software Engineering do not provide sufficient
process models, policies, standards or tools that can be leveraged
in a simulation program. Furthermore, simulation as a body of
science does not have a collective scientific paradigm that establishes
development practices let alone the final "system" validation. Now more
than ever, simulation development professionals need defined practices and standards
and tools in order to produce the right environment for
the right requirements at an appropriate cost.
Related topics:
simulation, synthetic environments, simulation and training
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