Research On The Theory And Methods Of Virtual Prototyping Test And Evaluation Based On Meta-Synthesis

Virtual Prototyping Test and Evaluation (VPT&E) is a significant sub-process of virtual acquisition. As the complexity of weapon systems increases, Test and Evaluation (T&E) in a conventional sense is not practical. The research aiming at the problems in current T&E process has very important meanings for the improvement of acquisition process and the increasing of acquisition efficiency. Therefore, it has become one of the advanced research area of Modeling and Simulation (M&S) and acquisition.In order to deal with the problems in VPT&E, which is a multi-level, man-in-the-loop, and dense-knowledge complex system, we put forward a new T&E idea, VPT&E based on Meta-Synthesis, which integrates the quantitative analysis capabilities of M&S and the qualitative analysis capabilities of experts' knowledge. Surrounding this topic, this dissertation studies VPT&E based on Meta-Synthesis from three aspects, viz. theory, method and implementation.First of all, based on the research and analysis of the characteristics, together with the requirements of VPT&E, we study the interrelated concepts of Meta-Synthesis, and establish conceptual architecture and technical architecture sequentially, which provide a high view and technical reference reliance for the following research on the theory and methods.The disadvantages on the architecture and process model have blocked the success performance of T&E nowadays. Based on the research and analysis of the architectures of current typical T&E environments and Hall for Workshop of Meta-Synthetic Engineering (HWMSE), architecture for the environment of VPT&E based on Meta-Synthesis is given, which is described systematically from three views: operational, system and technical. Agent technique is used to improve the performance and realizability of the architecture. Resources of quantitative M&S and qualitative experts' knowledge are synthesized effectively under the architecture, which solves the stove-pipe problem on nowadays T&E architecture development.The complexity of the T&E process has resulted in the difficulties on the describing of T&E process model. Based on the analysis of the principle of VPT&E process, we propose the process model of VPT&E based on Meta-synthesis, which is given from three views: circulation path, data relationship and abstraction layer. In order to unify the three views, a describing system based on components and rules is established, which takes Information Process Unit (IPU) as the basic process describing unit.In the study of VPT&E methods based on Meta-Synthesis, we puts efforts to solve two main problems of Meta-Synthesis: what kinds of knowledge Meta-Synthesis needs, and howthe knowledge is synthesized.The methods of integrating knowledge on the layer of content are the difficulty point in the Meta-Synthesis research. Experts' opinions are the important qualitative resources in VPT&E. Therefore, the development of the Expert Opinion Model (EOM) is the basis of Meta-Synthesis. A layer-built EOM is given here, as well as the composing of every layer and the mapping relationship between the layers. To achieve the synthesis of experts' opinions, we put forward the Agent-based ontological space relevancy method and the method of task knowledge integration based on similarity calculation.VPT&E based on Meta-Synthesis is a circulation between the fuzzy qualitative area and the accurate mathematics realm, in which there are a great number of qualitative variables described by natural language and quantitative variables described by number marks. Achieving the accurately mapping between these two kinds of variables and keeping the advantage of fuzzy qualitative knowledge at the same time are the sticking point of ensuring the reliability of VPT&E, which is one of the most important works of this dissertation. We introduce the Cloud Model into the VPT&E based on Meta-Synthesis, and put forward the transform process based on Cloud Model, which achieves the bidirectional transform of quantitative and qualitative variables. An application instance is implemented to validate the feasibility of the method.Applying the production of the research to practice, and validating the feasibility and readability of the theory and methods are the emphasis of the dissertation. In the background of a '863' project - Digital Spacecraft Design and Simulation Flexible System, together with the analysis of requirements, we design and implement a digital spacecraft evaluation and workshop system. We hope that the implementation can provide some references for future whole-life VPT&E.