NATO MODELLING

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NATOMODELLING SIMULATION GROUP
NMSG
04E-SIW-071,Edinburgh, June 2004
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04E-SIW-50HLA Compliance CertificationFuture
Developmentwithin NATO and PfP nations

• Jean-Louis IGARZA France
• Mark CROOKS United States
• Staffan LÖF SwedenChris TURRELL United
  States
• Phil ZIMMERMAN United States

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Outline

• NATO and MS
• New NATO Organization
• Description of the current HLA compliance
  certification process (US)
• NATO and the HLA standard
• The MSG-025 task Group
• Lessons learned from the past US activity
• Conclusions and recommendations

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NATO MS Organisation
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NATO Members 26 Nations
7 new nations
Bulgaria Estonia Latvia Lithuania Romania Slovakia
Slovenia
Prague Summit
2004
7 members added in successive waves
12 Founders
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Partnership Members 20 Nations

• PfP Concept (Washington Summit 1999)
• Partnership is one of the Fundamental Security
  Tasks
• to promote co-operation and dialogue with
  countries in the European-Atlantic Area
• to increase transparency and mutual confidence.

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Functional Realignmentof Strategic Commands (SC)
Before Fall 2002
Starting in 2003
Allied Command Transformation
SACLANT
SC
Joint
Allied Command Operations
SACEUR
SC
Allied Command Transformation ACT
Allied Command Operations ACO
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ACT Relationships/ Links
Nations
ACO (SHAPE) Mons, BE
JFCOM Norfolk, VA
HQ SACT Norfolk, VA
Joint Warfare Centre Stavanger, NO
Undersea Research Centre La Spezia, IT
Staff Element Mons, BE
NATO School OGau, GE
Joint Force Training Centre Bydgoszcz, PL
ACTREPEUR Brussels, BE
NC3A The Hague, NL Brussels, BE
NATO Defence College Rome, IT
Joint Analysis Lessons Learned Centre Monsanto,
PO
NATO CIS School Latina, IT
RTO RTA - Paris, FR
Centres of Excellence
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CIVIL and MILITARY organisation of NATO
North Atlantic Council
Civil
Military
Military Committee
NATO Civilian Organisation

Research Technology Organisation
NATO Military Organisation
MAIN ARMAMENT GROUPS
NIAG INDUSTRY
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NATO MS Organisation
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NMSG Terms Of Reference
The Mission of the NATO Modelling and Simulation
(MS) Group (NMSG) is to promote co-operation
among Alliance bodies, NATO Member Nations and
PfP Nations to maximise the effective utilisation
of MS. Primary mission areas include MS
standardisation, education, and associated
science and technology. The Group will provide
MS expertise in support of the tasks and
projects within the RTO and from other NATO
organisations. .
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NMSG COMPOSITION
NATO Nations - Belgium - The Netherlands -
Canada - Norway - Czech R. -
Poland - Denmark - Portugal - France - Spain -
Germany - Turkey - Greece - United Kingdom -
Italy - United States - Hungary
Ex-Officio Members - IMS - NC3A - NIAG -
SACLANT - SHAPE
Partners for Peace (PfP) Nations and candidate
NATO Nations - Bulgaria - Georgia -
Moldavia - Romania - Slovakia -
Sweden - Uzbekistan - Estonia
- FYROM - Belarus
- Finland - Russia
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Current HLA compliance certification process (US)
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The current compliance process

• Developed and provided by the US DoD DMSO since
  1997. HLA compliance certification was only
  available in the US, but
• The US has tested federates from non-US nations
  and from NATO organizations,
• New nations will provide this service in 2004
  France, Canada, Sweden
• More than 257 federates have undergone the DMSO
  compliance process in Feb 2004 .
• HLA Federate Compliance Testing is available at
  http//www.hlatest.msiac.dmso.mil.

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Some important tips

• Only federates are certified
• neither complete federations
• nor federate/federation developers (!)
• But to be certified, a federate has to be
  integrated within a federation
• Not necessarily the targeted federation,
• Can be a simple and on-purpose designed
  federation but demonstrating the exact
  functionality of the federate (same SOM) will be
  called testing-federation

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How the Compliance Certification is achieved

• By dedicated organizations
• e. g. the US DMSO
• By a Certification Agent
• via the Internet or a dedicated network,
• according to a well defined 4-step process,
• running a specific software (FCTT or Federate
  Certification Testing Tool).
• In the 4th step of the testing process, the FCTT
  runs as a passive non-intrusive federate on the
  testing-federation (a listener).

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HLA Compliance testing - Step 1

• (Compliance testing is a 4-step process)
• Step 1 Application Request via test web page
• General Information Requested
• Point of Contact Information
• Sponsorship Information
• Federate Name, Version, and Brief Description
• HLA Specification Version
• RTI Version
• Expected Interface Test Date
• Correctly providing all information is important
  for quick approval.

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HLA Compliance testing - Step 2

• Submittal of a Conformance Notebook (SOM
  Conformance Statement (CS)) done via the test
  web page using file upload. Option of submitting
  a CS on-line is available.
• The Conformance Statement (CS) is a list of
  service calls that the federate expects to use or
  provide to the RTI.
• Specific Tests conducted
• CS Dependency Check
• SOM Parseability Test
• SOM/CS Cross-Check
• Once Tests are all successful, a test sequence is
  generated using the SOM the CS ...

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HLA Compliance testing - Step 3

• Submittal of Environmental Data
• done via the test web page via file upload
• The specific items requested
• FOM (.fed file for 1.3)
• RTI Configuration File (RTI.rid file)
• API, Hardware, and Operating System used.
• RTI Execution hostname and IP address.
• Federation Execution hostname and IP address.
• Whether or not a firewall is in place.
• Additional Comment Section
• Once all data uploaded, the final machine-
  readable test sequence is generated using the FOM.

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HLA Compliance testing - Step 4

• Interface (IF) Test conducted across the
  Internet whenever possible.
• On day and time of test, the Certification Agent
  (CA) will call the Federate Under Test (FUT)
  developer.
• The CA remains on the phone with the FUT
  developer throughout the IF Test in order to
  coordinate the testing process.
• Once RTI connectivity has been established with
  the Certification Agents Test Logger, the FUT
  may join the testing-federation and execute the
  required test sequence.

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HLA Compliance testing - Step 4 (ctd.)

• Once the test sequence is complete and the FUT
  has demonstrated all of the required RTI
  Interface Services, the CA will resign and
  conduct a post-process test on the log.
• The post-process tests consist of comparing the
  test log against the final test sequence to
  verify that each required RTI Interface Service
  was demonstrated correctly

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HLA Compliance testing - Step 4 (final)

• Following a successful IF Test, the FUT developer
  proceeds to the Step 4 web page and completes a
  Certification Request.
• The Certification Request gathers important
  information needed to complete the official
  Certificate and Letter of HLA Certification.
• An After Action Review (AAR) is also scheduled.
  Each FUT developer is required to conduct an AAR
  and submit a SOM to the Object Model Resource
  Center before receiving its certificate and
  letter.

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Additional features

• Current Testing Suite is based on
• Version US DoD 1.3 of HLA,
• HLA RTI NG V6 (and previous).
• New version (close to release) will support
• Both 1.3 and IEEE 1516,
• Different RTIs (but all certified by DMSO).

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NATO the HLA standard and the HLA Compliance
Certification
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Interest of HLA for NATO

• Military operations are supported by coalitions,
• Involving different nations , different cultures,
• New nations joining NATO ...
• Training of multi-national joint forces and their
  staffshall use national MS capabilitiesInterop
  erability provided by HLA is a key
• Many current and future NATO projects are based
  on HLA
• example FIRST WAVE (Sept.2004) !
• New NC3A projects based on HLA

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Why HLA compliance testingwithin NATO?

• NATO federations could be composed from very
  different origin, with different level of
  capabilities ...
• HLA compliance testing and certification is
• Not considered as mandatory by NATO,
• But rather considered as a normal step on the way
  to technical interoperability of simulations,
• Considered as a common service to beprovided to
  the international community ...

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Excerpt from the 2002 NATO report

• HLA compliance testing provides a first level of
  assurance to the federation manager that a
  federate conducts it as it says.
• Even if HLA certification does not provide a full
  guarantee of interoperability, it provides the
  first and necessary step in establishing the
  future NATO interoperability infrastructure.

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The NATO/PfP solution forHLA Certification

• Implement a distributed capability between some
  voluntary nations,
• Use an unique process, a common software, (based
  on the US certification suite)
• Evolutions controlled by NATO and PfP nations
  involved in a common working group the MSG-025
  task group on HLA compliance certification
  implementation in NATO and PfP Nations

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NATO task group MSG-025

• To serve as an Advisory Group,
• Promoting the activity,
• Monitoring evolution,
• Proposing improvements
• To help the implementation
• of HLA compliance certification processin non-US
  nations

• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Poland
• Spain
• Sweden
• United Kingdom
• United States

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NATO MSG-025 Activity

• First meeting in March 2003,
• Published an HLA Compliance Certification
  Implementation Plan (early 2004)
• Preparing HLA Compliance Certification Capability
  Implementation in 3 countries
• Canada, France, Sweden
• Tutorial and Implementation in Paris next week

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Results derived from the past US activity

• Based on the1.3 US DoD version of HLA

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How HLA certificationis supporting the HLA
standard

• In addition to other advantages the US HLA
  compliance certification activity provides a lot
  of information on
• Amount of effort required to adapt legacy
  simulations,
• Statistics on HLA services supported / used by
  federates high-value information
• on the current/recent use of HLA
• for the future evolution of the standard

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Federation Management
FederationExecution
100
SynchronizationPoint
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Save and Restore
7
3
1
2
2
3
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Declaration Management
publishObjectClass
Subscribe/Unsubscribe
Interactions
80
publishObjectClass
unpublishObjectClass
RegistrationForObjectClass
publishInteractionClass
InteractionsOn/Off
unpublishInteractionClass
unpublishObjectClass
subscribeObjectClassAttributes
unsubscribeObjectClass
subscribeInteractionClass
unsubscribeInteractionClass
30
startRegistrationForObjectClass
stopRegistrationForObjectClass
turnInteractionsOn
15
turnInteractionsOff
13
13
11
10
0
35
Object Management
AttributeValues
ObjectInstance
Interaction
registerObjectInstance
80
Del./Rem.ObjectInstance
discoverObjectInstance
updateAttributeValues
reflectAttributeValues
sendInteraction
Request/ProvideValueUpdate
receiveInteraction
deleteObjectInstance
50
removeObjectInstance
localDeleteObjectInstance
40
changeAttributeTransportationType
UpdatesOn/Off
changeInteractionTransportationType
attributesInScope
TransportationType
30
attributesOutOfScope
AttributesScope
requestAttributeValueUpdate
requestClassAttributeValueUdate
provideAttributeValueUpdate
turnUpdatesOnForObjectInstance
10
turnUpdatesOffForObjectInstance
3
0
0
36
Ownership Management
attributeOwnershipAcquisitionNotification
attributeOwnershipAcquisition
8.0
7.4
6.1
5.2
4.3
4.3
3.9
4.0
1.7
2.0
1.3
1.0
Ownership Management
37
Time Management
TimeConstrained
timeAdvanceGrant
TimeRegulation
26
timeAdvanceRequest
queryFederateTime
24
25
22
17.7
17
15
7
6
5
0.9
0.4
0
38
Data Distribution Management
5.2
5
4.3
4.3
4
2.6
2.2
2
1.3
0.9
1
39
Support Services
25
25
19
18
20
15
3
5
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Conclusions

• The MS community has not fully exploited the HLA
  capabilities yet, particularly
• time management,
• ownership transfer,
• save and restore,
• DDM,
• etc.
• But HLA has mainly been used for federating
  legacy simulations which are generally not able
  to fully exploit all capabilities.
• Previous statistics are based on US DoD 1.3 HLA
  standard more info on 1516 to come !
• NATO and PfP nations should persist in collecting
  statistics on HLA usage

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Recommendations

• HLA federate developers and government
  organisations should continue to require
  compliance certification, which should be
  considered as a part of the standard (within the
  FEDEP)
• HLA Evolved PDG
• Shall consider statistical results in reviewing
  the standard,
• Emphasize the importance of the HLA compliance
  certification and its interest for simulations
  reuse
• In this perspective include the Conformance
  Statement document within the standard in
  conjunction with the SOM