DEVS formalism as a framework for advanced distributed simulation

Advanced distributed simulation (ADS) is an enabling concept to support the networked interaction of models and real-world elements resident at geographically dispersed sites planned for next-generation simulation environments such as the Joint Simulation System (JSIMS). In this paper, we review the DEVS (discrete event systems specification) formalism and indicate why it provides the right framework to address many of the difficult technical issues that must be solved to enable ADS to provide infrastructures for distributed simulation. Then we address two of these issues in detail. The first issue addressed is the use of filtering and predictive contracts to reduce the tremendous amounts of data and control messages that must be transmitted in simulations. The second part focuses on scheduling and synchronization mechanisms for the efficient parallel execution of such models.