M&S Interoperability within the DII COE: Building a Technical Requirements Specification

Key to the future interoperability of Simulations with Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) systems is the Defense Information Infrastructure Common Operating Environment (DII COE) Architecture. The DII COE is composed of configurable, layered, reusable software components that work together with specific C4I mission software to perform a task. All future DoD C4I systems will design to the DII COE. However, because Modeling and Simulation (M&S) has not been involved with the development of DII COE components to date, simulation capabilities fall short. Recently, a DII COE Technical Working Group (TWG) was set up to address M&S Functionality. This paper describes the development of an initial Technical Requirements Specification (TRS) that will formalize M&S Requirements to the DII COE Co.

The DII COE M&S TRS seeks to identify requirements for functions, features, and capabilities of the DII COE that would facilitate the interface of models or simulations. Through implementation of these M&S requirements, developers of DII COE infrastructure software will be able to provide this missing M&S functionality. DII COE TWGs typically have a Software Requirements Specification (SRS) that guides the development of common infrastructure software. The DII COE M&S TRS identifies requirements in other SRS (such as the Common Operational Picture TWG, the Message Processing TWG and the Data Access TWG), as well as unique M&S requirements that do not belong in any other TWG SRS.

The initial TRS is organized according to an established C4I/M&S Interoperability Technical Reference Model (TRM) developed over the last three years and cited in the SISO C4I Study Group Report. The TRS allocates requirements into the three main categories of the TRM – 1) Management Control; 2) Persistent Data; and 3) Non-Persistent Data. The paper describes how the TRS is being developed within the DII COE TWG structure, the organization of the TRS, gives an overview of the requirements, and gives examples of the software functionality in the DII COE that is expected to be developed from these requirements.