SEA and partners report on future of modelling and simulation

Systems Engineering and Assessment Ltd (SEA) led an industry team that delivered findings on the future of modelling and simulation to the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence.

The core Architectures, Interoperability and Management of Simulations (AIMS) delivery team of SEA, BAE Systems, QinetiQ and Thales conducted research tasks related to the AIMS themes for the last four years. It found one of the key outputs from AIMS is Modelling and Simulation as a Service (MSaaS). The MSaaS concept provides a strategic approach to deliver secure, agile simulation-based capabilities; by making modelling and simulation assets, data and services conveniently accessible.

The delivery of future simulation using MSaaS provides greater accessibility to simulation, enhanced sharing and reuse of assets, rapid composition and deployment of simulations and efficient use of hardware.

The AIMS team demonstrated how MSaaS could be employed to support future training and Joint Force exercise activities of MSaaS to key MoD (Ministry of Defence) stakeholders at the Shrivenham UK Defence Academy. They also confirmed key elements of the concept including a registry and repository of simulation assets, simulation composition tools and rapid deployment and execution using cloud computing technologies.

While AIMS developed the UK concept for MSaaS, it also contributed activity to provide a consistent approach to MSaaS across partner nations to the parallel NATO Modelling and Simulation Group. The research team modified existing parallel capabilities in the Defence Geospatial Services area developed by Envitia to provide a searchable registry of simulation assets.

The MSaaS approach is consistent with the future direction of service delivery and key UK MoD initiatives including Defence as a Platform (DaaP) and provides an opportunity to enhance the services offered by the UK Defence Simulation Centre.