MSaaS based architecture for Dynamic Synthetic Environments in Distributed Simulations

Real-world military operations take place in challenging and ever-changing environments. It is therefore important that modelling and simulation systems used to support defence, including planning and training for operations are capable of representing the dynamic aspects of real-world environments in a common and consistent way. This will increase the (training) value and realism of simulation exercises and help military personnel to better prepare for future operations. Current simulation systems only support limited capabilities of dynamic features, and where such capabilities are represented these are often pre-scripted and not correlated with other systems in a federated (distributed) simulation exercise. This gap between the need to represent the challenges of operational environments across simulation systems led to the formation of the NATO Task Group MSG-156, with the objective to research how a correlated Dynamic Synthetic Environment (DSE) can be achieved in future distributed simulations.
This paper will discuss the solution architecture that MSG-156 has proposed to achieve correlated dynamic synthetic environments. MSaaS is a key technology in this architecture as central services enable one synthetic environment state to exist for all participants. This includes the development of prototype services to support dynamic modifications to the environment to be made in a consistent way. The components of this proposed DSE architecture, their responsibilities and interfaces will be described. MSG-156 carried out a proof-of-concept demonstration of the proposed DSE architecture. This paper will discuss the demonstration and the subsequent lessons learned from integrating the relevant service based components and executing the demonstration. Finally, the recommendations on further developments and standardization and potential exploitation of the DSE architecture will be discussed.