Part II: Modeling and simulation in systems engineering: Whither simulation based acquisition?

In the last issue, we noted that the US Department of Defense has called for evolutionary acquisition to be the preferred method for future defense acquisition programs and for Simulation Based Acquisition to support this [1,2]. This vision requires building comprehensive digital representations of systems whose authenticity is accepted by all interested parties. This daunting task will require cooperation among all stakeholders in government and industry on a scale far greater than we have today.