NATO STO

M&S as a Service;Simulation Interoperability;Credibility;M&S Domain Services;Distributed Simulation;Simulation Environments;Simulation Architecture;Service Oriented Architecture 

NATO and the nations regularly use distributed simulation environments for various purposes (e.g., training, mission rehearsal, or decision support in acquisition processes). Achieving interoperability between participating systems and ensuring credibility of results require still today enormous efforts with regards to time, personnel, and budget. This is a result of current standards which focus mainly on technical, syntactic and – to a limited degree – on semantic interoperability. Missing are simulation standards, agreements, and reference architectures that focus on higher levels of interoperability and simulation credibility.

To investigate, propose and evaluate standards, agreements, architectures, implementations, and cost-benefit analysis of Modelling and Simulation (M&S) as a Service (MSaaS) approaches. Specifically, with regards to: 1. Evaluating the use of (M&S domain) services to improve simulation interoperability and credibility. 2. Analyzing the organizational M&S services perspective to establish a sustainable and efficient management of M&S services in NATO. Specific M&S domain services for detailed investigation are selected by the task group and may include (but are not limited to): • Enabling rapid initialization of simulation systems with correlated synthetic environment data by using a Synthetic Environment Service (SES). • Reducing development time significantly by scenario management services (including library of typical scenarios that may be used with minimum efforts).