NATO Federated Mission Networking Standards for CAX

EasyChair Preprint 4511

Abstract

Computer Assisted Exercises (CAX) are a well-accepted capability for achieving collective training of today’s national and coalition military in preparation for operations. However, there is a need to harmonize CAX technology with NATO’s new approach to operational collaboration, command, and control: Federated Mission Networking (FMN).

Two decades ago in Afghanistan, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force was hampered in operations until the Afghan Mission Network (AMN) was assembled to support collaboration and coordination of forces. Today, Allied Command Transformation is preparing for a future where a coalition force has a network far superior to AMN on Day Zero of coalition operations. Toward this end, the FMN project is assembling a framework of NATO and commercial standards with the expectation that the 30 member nations will configure their networking capabilities to interoperate over the FMN standards. FMN standards thus will provide the basis for “train as you fight” communications as well as supporting distributed simulation for that training.

The NATO Modelling and Simulation Group (MSG) Technical Activity 145 and SISO Product Development Group for the C2-Simulation Interoperation (C2SIM) standard have been working together to standardize and operationalize a new capability, which has been described in previous CAX Fora by the author. The team that assembled C2SIM standards now finds a new challenge: assembling and justifying a collection of standards for modeling and simulation (M&S) that suit FMN needs, with C2SIM an obvious cornerstone of that collection. This paper addresses from a CAX viewpoint the technical issues and process whereby standards for networked computer simulation within the FMN are nominated. The paper introduces the FMN concept, followed by a discussion of the role of networking in coalition exercises, and finishes with a review of likely standards for networked military simulation.

Keyphrases: Federated Mission Networking, computer assisted exercises, modelling and simulation standards

@booklet{EasyChair:4511,
  author    = {J. Mark Pullen and Fabio Corona and Claudio Zamponi},
  title     = {NATO Federated Mission Networking Standards for CAX},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 4511},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2020}}