Experiences from constructing command and control simulations using a tactical data link standard

Most operational Command and Control systems use a Tactical Data Link to communicate. The need to integrate simulated systems with operational systems and other simulated systems resulted in the utilization of Tactical Data Link for the integration. Integrating simulated systems in this way are not necessarily ideal and presents several challenges with regards to data distribution and time management. Data model translation and the exchange of simulation meta-data also present some difficulties. The observations made and problems encountered while integrating different simulators using a tactical data link are discussed in this paper.