Evaluation of the C2IEDM as an Interoperability-Enabling Ontology

The science of linguistics tells us that Ontology is the specification of meaning for the elements of a language, and the relationships between those elements. Within the world of data modeling, as different models must interact with each other, the ability to describe the ontology of a data model becomes increasingly more important. This is especially true in the realm of simulation interoperability, where each different simulation system has it’s own data model, and therefore, it’s own ontology. One of the most crucial paths of research currently being explored by a number of different parties is the use of the Command and Control Information Exchange Data Model (C2IEDM) as a referential tool enabling the interchange of data between two (or more) distinct systems. The C2IEDM necessarily has it’s own ontology, but is it sufficiently complete to serve as a referential ontology for simulation interoperability? This paper will first describe what defines an ontology, and what is a sufficiently complete ontology to serve as a reference for simulation interoperability. A review of the functional areas of the C2IEDM will follow, and finally based on this review, an evaluation will be made as to whether the C2IEDM is a sufficiently complete ontology.