The international military community routinely conducts live training exercises to improve how nations work and fight together. These exercises allow countries to use their existing military equipment augmented with Tactical Engagement Simulation Systems (TESS) to simulate combat and combat-related activities. In general, each nation’s TESS is customized for their military apparatus plus their training tactics and thus may not fully interoperate with another nation’s TESS. As a consequence, the overall effectiveness of the international training events may be hampered by imperfect interoperability of the equipment supporting the event. In 2018, a study team reported on the Interoperability Readiness Assessment Methodology (IRAM) that was developed to apply an established Levels of Conceptual Interoperability Model (LCIM) to the TESS interoperability problem in the live training systems domain.
Using artifacts from the NATO Modeling and Simulations Group (NMSG) Urban Combat Advanced Training Technologies (UCATT), the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training & Instrumentation (PEO STRI), Program Manager Soldier Training (PM ST) and The MITRE Corporation teamed to develop software to implement the IRAM. The Interoperability Readiness Assessment Toolset (IRAT) documents observed interoperability levels after a coalition exercise concludes. The scoring mechanism provides insight to exercise planners where TESS inoperability may limit the effectiveness of multinational training and decrease the ability to plan for real-world operations. Initial results of using the IRAT with the international community have been favorable. The international community is currently steering the future direction of the IRAT to include adding analysis prior to an event using standards to gauge interoperability on individual interfaces.