A Virtual Engineering Primer: Foundations for a theory of modeling and simulation

Perhaps the most generic trend in technology is the creation of increasingly complex systems together with a greater reliance on simulation for their design and analysis. Large networks of computers with shared data bases and high-speed communication are used in everything from the design and manufacture of microchips to vehicles such as the Boeing 777. Advances in technology have put us in the interesting position of being limited less by our inability to sense and actuate, to compute and communicate, and to fabricate and manufacture new materials, than by how well we understand, design and control their interconnection and the resulting complexity. While component-level problems will continue to be important, systems-level problems will be even more so. Further, “components” (e.g., sensors) increasingly need to be viewed as complex systems in their own right. This “systems of systems” view is coming to dominate technology at every level.

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