The Test and Training Enabling Architecture (TENA) and the Joint Mission Environment Test Capability (JMETC) program provide an advanced set of interoperability software, interfaces, and connectivity for use in joint distributed testing and training. This tutorial will provide information about the how TENA works and why it is important to the test and training communities, with some comparison to other interoperability architectures. TENA provides testers and trainers software such as the TENA Middleware—a high-performance, real-time, low-latency communication infrastructure that is used by training range instrumentation software and tools during execution of a range training event. The standard TENA Object Models provide data definitions for common range entities and thus enables semantic interoperability among training range applications. The TENA tools, utilities, adapters, and gateways assist in creating and managing an integration of range resources. The current version of the TENA Middleware, Release 6.0.x, is being used by the range community for testing, training, evaluation, and feedback and is be used in major exercises in the present. A preview of the expected Release 6.1 will be presented.
JMETC is a persistent test and evaluation capability throughout the US DoD, connecting many test ranges together, including a bridge to the JTEN training network; a set of TENA-compliant software middleware, interfaces, tools, and databases; and a process for creating large distributed test events. The combination of TENA and JMETC gives testers and trainers unprecedented power to craft a joint distributed mission environment that forges the future for innovative testing and training.