Toward a MBSE Research Testbed: Prototype Implementation and Lessons Learned

As Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) continues to advance in terms of system life cycle coverage, modeling languages, methods, and tools, there is a growing need of an overarching framework for organizing MBSE artifacts that facilitates their rapid retrieval and use by MBSE researchers. At the same time, researchers must have an environment supportive of exploring, experimenting with, and collecting performance data when using potentially heterogenous modeling constructs and algorithms over broad ranges of conditions and assumptions. These requirements jointly imply the need for a MBSE research testbed that enables experimentation with diverse modeling, analysis, simulation, verification, and validation approaches under nominal and off-nominal conditions, collect and analyze data to uncover patterns and trends, reuse models and components as applicable, and serve as a repository for scenarios, models, case studies, and lessons learned. This paper presents progress to date and lessons learned from the prototype MBSE testbed implementation.