NATO and nations have a common need for combined and joint collective tactical training to ensure mission readiness. There are however significant challenges: while current and future operations are multinational in nature, missions and systems are becoming more complex and need detailed preparation and rapid adaptation to changing circumstances. At the same time, opportunities for (live) training and mission preparation are reduced due to fewer available resources and limited time span between political decision making and deployment.
Simulation has become an essential tool to meet the training demands of our military forces. Improvements in technical capabilities and reduced costs enable more effective use of simulation. Mission Training through Distributed Simulation (MTDS) is therefore crucial to NATO’s and nation’s readiness.
Nations are moving toward greater use of simulation for mission training and adopting national MTDS capabilities. Over time several NATO Modelling & Simulation Group (NMSG) initiatives provided valuable inputs into the development of a NATO MTDS vision and concept of operations (MSG-106/NETN, MSG-128/MTDS). So far these have not led to a persistent MTDS capability, due to the lack of a common technical framework and complexity of preparing an MTDS event.
Building on previous results, ongoing NMSG activities (MSG-165/MTDS-II, MSG-169/LVC-T) aim to address this by amongst others developing a common MTDS Technical Reference Architecture (TRA) for Joint and Combined Operations. The TRA provides MTDS requirements in the form of building blocks, interoperability standards and patterns for realizing and performing collective mission training and exercises supported by distributed simulation, independent of application domain (land, air, maritime).
This paper provides background, objectives and principles of the MTDS TRA, an interim status update of the work, and planned way ahead. The work is performed in a collaborative effort by several NATO nations, partner nations and organisations under the auspices of the NMSG.