Co-Design and Co-Simulation Infrastructure for a New Observing Strategies Testbed

Abstract:

Developing concepts for New Observing Strategies (NOS) missions requires close coordination between members of science and engineering communities to understand the scientific value proposition as well as the technical capabilities of existing and proposed observing systems. Observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) incorporate feedback from scientific objectives into the design of observing systems but struggle to accommodate the heterogeneous elements and stakeholders in NOS missions. Co-design principles pursue greater stakeholder participation spanning both technical processes of optimization and social processes of joint inquiry and imagination. Applied to NOS missions, co-design brings together scientists, engineers, and partners to synthesize and evaluate NOS systems. As an enabling technology, co-simulation couples the execution of constituent models via dynamic information exchange. Existing standards for co-simulation target multi-physics systems using continuous time methods and other systems using discrete event methods. Standards such as IEEE 1278 Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) and IEEE 1516 High Level Architecture (HLA) provide mature platforms for co-simulation but have only modest adoption outside of the defense industry. Other information systems provide co-simulation testbeds to develop and advance distributed system concepts for microgrids, building controls, and air traffic management. Co-simulation proposed for NOS defines a lightweight service-oriented architecture based on event brokers that is suitable for cloud orchestration. Sensing and coordination nodes in the engineering domain interact with science nodes through loosely coupled interfaces to explore new opportunities for dynamic response to emergent events. At operational timescales, science nodes request observations at key locations to improve forecast confidence and, at strategic timescales, identify which additional observing platforms provide the greatest long-term benefit. Co-simulation scenarios propose, evaluate, and mature new technology and operational concepts to understand how coordination across disciplinary and organizational boundaries can improve scientific value.