DEVS Closure Under Coupling, Universality, and Uniqueness: Enabling Simulation and Software Interoperability from a System-Theoretic Foundation

This article explores the foundational mechanisms of the Discrete Event System Specification (DEVS) theory—closure under coupling, universality, and uniqueness—and their critical role in enabling interoperability through modular, hierarchical simulation frameworks. Closure under coupling empowers modelers to compose interconnected models, both atomic and coupled, into unified systems without departing from the DEVS formalism. We show how this modular approach supports the scalable and flexible construction of complex simulation architectures on a firm system-theoretic foundation. Also, we show that facilitating the transformation from non-modular to modular and hierarchical structures endows a major benefit in that existing non-modular models can be accommodated by simply wrapping them in DEVS-compliant format. Therefore, DEVS theory simplifies model maintenance, integration, and extension, thereby promoting interoperability and reuse. Additionally, we demonstrate how DEVS universality and uniqueness guarantee that any system with discrete event interfaces can be structurally represented with the DEVS formalism, ensuring consistency across heterogeneous platforms. We propose that these mechanisms collectively can streamline simulator design and implementation for advancing simulation interoperability. Finally, we conclude by discussing how DEVS concepts apply to the Department of Defense’s Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) to deployment of software systems. We propose that the DEVS-based development of modeling and simulation architecture provides a rigorous, formal basis to uniformly and efficiently integrate, execute, and manage diverse software systems, thereby enhancing interoperability, scalability, and maintainability across Department of Defense (DoD) software initiatives.