AN OVERVIEW OF MODEL AND SIMULATION VERIFICATION, VALIDATION, AND ACCREDITATION

Today, much greater emphasis is being placed on both the correctness and credibility of models and simulations because of increased concern about the legal liabilities associated with them and reduced defense budgets which are forcing greater reliance on models and simulations within DoD. Consequently, model and simulation verification, validation, and accreditation (VV&A) has become increasingly important. Each military service is developing formal VV&A processes. This article provides an introduction to VV&A, reviews recent VV&A activities within DoD, describes a paradigm for VV&A, discusses application of VV&A to distributed simulation, and addresses a variety of VV&A techniques and issues.