Integration of Live, Virtual, and Constructive (LVC) Modeling and Simulation (M&S) assets within a single, unified distributed simulation environment is commonplace today as a means to address the diverse needs of the training and test communities. Such environments frequently transcend the use of a single simulation architecture or Simulation Data Exchange Model (SDEM), as the organizations that participate in distributed LVC events generally want to employ the local standards and conventions with which they are most familiar. Different protocols and data formats are reconciled in modern development approaches through the use of gateways. Gateways provide a variety of translation and other services in LVC events, enabling operation across dissimilar architectures.

Despite the many success stories associated with gateway use in LVC events, there are several well-documented issues with gateways. Most of these are related to a general lack of supporting products to allow users to discover the gateway capabilities they need, along with a corresponding lack of products and standards for gateway configuration. These problems have resulted in a proliferation of dissimilar gateways that provide redundant capabilities, but which must be managed and maintained separately. The need to address these inherent inefficiencies has led to Department of Defense (DoD)-sponsored efforts to reduce the costs and to increase the effectiveness of gateway utilization in user programs.

This paper will describe the products developed under the Live-Virtual-Constructive Architecture Roadmap Implementation (LVCAR-I) effort to address the core goals in the gateway area. Examples of such products include Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based formal languages to support gateway selection and configuration, and specification of standard benchmarks for characterizing the performance of gateways. These products form the foundation for a suite of automated tools and supporting processes that will strongly facilitate gateway discovery and configuration in the future.