Multilevel Agent-Based Modeling of System of Systems

—This paper deals with the generic modeling of systems of systems (SoSs) using agent-based modeling. SoSs are large-scale systems, including numerous—possibly heterogeneous— interacting component systems evolving in a dynamic environment. The aim of this paper is to provide generic formalism allowing to represent and control the whole complexity of a SoS using agent-based simulations. In particular, organizational aspects of SoSs are managed with the Agent–Group–Role model. Functional aspects, guiding SoSs to accomplish their global goals, are handled via a functional specification. Multilevel aspects are mod-eled with the Influence Reaction Model for Multilevel Simulation (IRM4MLS) agent-based meta-model. Models generated using this formalism encompass static and dynamic aspects of SoSs. They consider reorganization of SoSs caused by changes of goals or subsystem capacity. All these elements are illustrated in this paper using a SoS case study of Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles initiated by the Intelligent Transportation for Dynamic Environment (InTraDE) European project to automate the port container logistic. Index Terms—Agent-based modeling (ABM), complex system engineering, systems of systems (SoSs)