Lessons Learned from leveraging Simulation as a Service in Viking 18

Complexity is ever increasing in current military operations, due typically to the fact that missions are more often performed in a comprehensive environment with many different actors, including military and civil. In order to prepare for these missions, advanced training, in which the military and civil trainees are immersed in such complex environments, is required. (Distributed) simulation has been recognized by NATO as a solution to support training of these missions and the concept of “Mission Training through Distributed Simulation” (MTDS) is currently developed by several nations under the umbrella of the NATO Modelling and Simulation Group. The Netherlands MoD has also identified the need for MTDS capabilities and initiated an MTDS research programme in 2017. Development of MTDS solutions is a technical and organisational challenge that can be addressed by defining a so-called Reference Architecture. The Reference Architecture and its specific generic elements descriptions (Architecture Building Blocks or ABBs) offer both a blueprint and a flexible approach for rapid implementation of exercise environments. The VIKING-18 CAX exercise was selected as a use-case to identify ABBs and evaluate service based implementations of these ABBs. This paper presents the MTDS ABBs that have been derived from the VIKING-18 requirements as well as the lessons learned from their use. The specific ABB implementations provided for VIKING-18 consisted of simulation services for realistic computer generated maritime vessel traffic, including transmission of ‘Automatic Identification System (AIS)’ messages, and services for the simulation and control of land units. These simulation services leveraged the results of the NATO task group MSG-136 M&S as a Service (MSaaS). The work was performed in a collaborative effort by TNO Defence Research (NLD), Pitch Technologies (SWE), and the Swedish Armed Forces (SWAF) Joint Training Centre.