Standards Development

Scope

This part of ISO 21175 specifies a technology-neutral message meta-model and associated exchange formats for collaborative distributed simulation on different manufacturing platforms within a Collaborative Modelling and Simulation Environment (CMSE).

It defines:

— an abstract message meta-model for the identification, addressing, timing and payload structure of messages exchanged during a simulation run;

— standardized message sets and their semantics for simulation lifecycle management, time management, model input and output exchange, monitoring, logging and error reporting;

— a normative JSON-based serialization binding for representing these messages in a machinereadable and interoperable form;

— general transport-binding principles for conveying such messages over message-oriented middleware or event-streaming infrastructures.

This document applies to collaborative simulation configurations in which a coordinator and a set of runners exchange messages in order to initialize, synchronize, execute, observe and terminate a joint simulation run. It is intended to support interoperability between heterogeneous simulation frameworks and platforms while preserving the semantics of logical time, message ordering and port-based interaction.

This document complements ISO 21175-1 by refining the message-based interaction mechanisms required to realize the Collaborative Modelling and Simulation Environment defined in that part.

Purpose

Open, sharing and on-demand collaboration among enterprises or departments using simulation models throughout the product life cycle continues to grow in importance. To support such collaboration, simulation models must be able to interoperate across heterogeneous manufacturing platforms, software frameworks and infrastructures, while still preserving the semantics of their behaviour and of the data they exchange.

In this context, the Collaborative Modelling and Simulation Environment (CMSE) defined in ISO 21175-1 provides a reference model and reference process for organizing joint simulation projects, but it does not yet specify in detail how messages used during simulation should be structured and exchanged. In many current joint simulation projects, model interaction is still realized through ad-hoc or platformspecific interfaces. Simulation stakeholders often need to negotiate message formats informally, to integrate software and models offline, or even to start and control simulations manually. These practices limit reuse of models, make cross-platform collaboration costly, and hinder the deployment of large-scale distributed or re-distributed simulations involving partners from different organizations. A standardized, technology-neutral message meta-model is therefore needed to ensure that simulation messages can be understood and processed consistently, independently of the underlying implementation technology or middleware.

This part of ISO 21175 specifies an abstract message meta-model and a set of exchange for mats for distributed and re-distributed simulation in a collaborative environment. It refines the reference model and process defined in ISO 21175-1 by formalizing how simulation models communicate, synchronize logical time and share simulation results across heterogeneous platforms. The message meta-model describes the structure and semantics of simulation messages, including identifiers, time information, ports and payloads, while the associated message sets define standard patterns for simulation lifecycle management, time management, model input/output, monitoring and diagnostics.