A reference model for simulation systems engineering

Every simulation system has its domain commonness and application uniqueness. Based on this phenomenology, domain engineering methodology and product-line technology, which originate from software engineering and now been adopted by systems engineering community, find their applications in simulation community. This article presents a new reference model for simulation system engineering. In the reference model, the general simulation practices are divided into three respects: Simulation Domain Engineering, Simulation Model Engineering and Simulation Application Engineering, with three common facilities of simulation infrastructure, simulation reference structure and application domain architecture. The key activities in each simulation system engineering practice are discussed, and their inter-relationships are elaborated.