Object-Process Model-Based Operational Viewpoint Specification for Aerospace Architectures

Remote-controlled or autonomous multi-rotor air vehicles, or drones, have become common and commercially available even to individual consumers, mostly for imaging purposes. Drones appeal to mission architects looking to extend the toolbox provided to operators performing challenging missions such as public safety operations. However, careful analysis of the operational context and concept of operations must take place before major acquisitions. The purpose of this paper is to propose a model-based operational architecture definition framework, which is based on the Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) ontology and uses Object Process Methodology (OPM) as its underlying modeling language. Through careful mapping of DoDAF Operational Viewpoint (OV) ontology to OPM ontology, we were able to show that the entire OV ontology can be covered by a small set of objects, processes, relations among them, and constructs comprising them. We then show how to instantiate the ontology to create a model of an actual architecture of interest (AoI) while maintaining strong typing of the model elements to ensure validity, integrity, consistency, and continuous compliance with the OV. We demonstrate our approach on the case of using drones in public safety enterprises for the purpose of crowd management in massively attended events and locations. The proposed framework allows for capturing ConOps and OpsCon in a lightweight, yet robust and consistent manner, and improve communication and concept validation between operational stakeholders and enterprise architects.