Mr. Mark Thomas

1
Simulation and Stimulation for the Warriors Edge
Portfolio of the Horizontal Fusion Quantum Leap 1
and 2 05F-SIW-034

• Mr. Mark Thomas
• Team Leader
• Distributed Simulation Team
• U.S. Army Research Laboratory
• markt_at_arl.army.mil
• 410-278-5011

2
Acknowledgements

• Pat Jones, Branch Chief
• Distributed Simulation Team
• Gary Moss
• Maria Lopez
• John Richardson
• Robert Winkler, ARL
• Larry Tokarcik, Battlefield Communications Branch
  Chief
• Simulation community for the breadth of
  information available

3
Presentation Outline

• Project Background and Goals
• Technical Challenges
• Development Schedule
• Live/Virtual Integration
• Global/Local Interaction
• Solutions
• DIStoTOS
• S2StationDriver
• SquadSim
• Lessons Learned

4
Project Background and Goals

• Horizontal Fusion
• Web-centric operations infusion into military C4I
• Develop servers for the services
• Demonstrate, implement, and field the capability
• Warriors Edge
• Army story
• Local military operations in urban terrain
• Global operations
• Scenario support
• Live soldiers
• Instrumentation (robots, soldier systems)
• Simulate Information Fusion

5
Notional Warriors Edge
Global (UA/UE) Fusion
Local (Dismounted) Fusion

• Global node supports the pull of information
  relevant to the needs of the local node to
  complete analysis
• Global node fuses filtered information coming up
  from local node into its own information base

• Local node pulls information from global node to
  help plan next mission
• Local node fuses global pull with their organic
  sensors to develop better Sit Awareness
• Local node pushes critical information to global
  node
• Local node has similarinteractions with
  adjacent local nodes

Organic Sensors
Soldiers
LOCAL FUSION
GLOBAL / LOCAL FUSION
Fusion Node
LOCAL / LOCAL FUSION
LOCAL / GLOBAL FUSION
Soldiers
Fusion Node
UA/UE Organic Theater/National
C2
Organic Sensors
6
Challenges

• Limited number of live soldiers and
  instrumentation
• Platoon slice of live soldiers
• 3 ATRV2 robots
• 3 PACBOTS
• 1 MULE
• Needed a Brigade represented in Global space
• Needed interaction between live soldiers and
  simulated adjacent
• Needed to feed local information to the Global
  space
• Classified/Unclassified networks prevented direct
  link
• Quantum Leap 1 development time was less than 6
  months
• No real fusion !!!

7
Challenges

• Live C4I System characteristics
• Used Tactical Object Server (TOS)
• MIL STD 2525B XML-based format
• Client/Server architecture
• Messages sent as needed (no heartbeat)
• Live systems used 2D GPS coordinates
• Distributed Simulation system characteristics
• Complete knowledge of internal entities
• Heartbeat requirement
• Terse message formats

8
Requirements

• Simulate adjacent squads (perimeter defense)
• Respond to the local platoon leader
• Assist in scenario development and testing
• Simulate battalion and brigade location
  information
• Simulate red tracks
• Transmit simulated data to local information
  nodes
• Receive information from live local nodes
• Transmit information fusion packets to S2
  Workstation
• Do it all in six months !

9
Solution Set

• Dismounted Infantry Semi-Automated Forces (DISAF)
• Red entities
• Adjacent platoons
• Surrogate higher echelons
• DIStoTOS
• General message translation services for
  live/virtual interaction
• S2StationDriver
• Message translation services for Global data
• Scenario driver
• SquadSim
• First person game for squad level operations

10
Local System Components
Simulated Entities and Units
Live Soldiers and Systems
SquadSim (3)
DISAF
TOS Network
DIS Network
DIStoTOS
11
Global System Components
Simulated Entities
UA (S2 Workstation)
HF Portfolio Servers
DISAF
TACSUM (WE Portal)
DIS Network
Portal Web-Services
S2StationDriver
12
DIStoTOS

• Converts Tactical Object Server (TOS) XML
  messages to Distributed Interactive Simulation
  Protocol Data Units (DIS)
• Creates a list for all discovered TOS entities.
  List used to update TOS entity posture data, and
  transmits a DIS heartbeat to the DIS network
• Creates a list for all discovered DIS entities.
  List used to update DIS entity posture data to
  the TOS network, and to manage the frequency of
  updates to the TOS network

13
S2StationDriver

• Converts Distributed Interactive Simulation
  Protocol Data Units (PDU) to S2 Workstation
  Schema (dcgsa)
• Aggregates small units into higher echelon
  entities. This provides a mechanism for
  simulating a Brigade sized unit with a small
  number of entities
• Provided a message interface to read and transmit
  information fusion data packets to the S2
  Workstation as required by the Quantum Leap
  scenario

14
SquadSim

• Game interface makes it easier to maneuver troops
• 3D visualization essential for realistic movement
  through the environment
• Used in addition to the Dismounted Infantry SAF
• Test bed for dismounted soldier simulation
  algorithms
• Uses open source (OpenSceneGraph, OpenAL, Open
  Dynamics Engine), the ARL DIS library, and Boston
  Dynamics DI-Guy

15
Lessons Learned

• Mature the schemas and scenarios early !
• Simulation works well with live data feeds with
  the dual entity list in DIStoTOS
• Do not underestimate the affect of message length
  on network performance. DIS Entity State PDU is
  144 bytes, TOS entity XML message is gt600 bytes
• Simulation must be responsive for effective play
  with live soldiers. The development of a game
  interface worked well
• Wireless communications affect all systems data
  capabilities. Simulation systems must be capable
  of handling communication outages

16
Conclusions

• The WE simulation system worked well for the
  Quantum Leap 1 and 2 exercises
• Interfaces between live and simulated entities
  and systems have been developed and work
• Current and future work will integrate real time
  gaming for greater response and more missions
  from adjacent virtual units
• Future work will concentrate on simulation
  support of data fusion research

17
Questions

• ?