scope:

Foreword

Guidelines are established for exercise management and feedback in Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) exercises. Guidance is provided to sponsors, providers, and supporters of DIS compliant systems and exercises as well as to developers of DIS exercise management and feedback stations. The activities of the organizations involved in a DIS exercise and the top-level processes used to accomplish those activities are addressed. The functional requirements of the exercise management and feedback process are also addressed. This standard is one of a series of standards developed for DIS to assure interoperability between dissimilar simulations for currently installed and future simulations developed by different organizations.

Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) is a government/industry initiative to define an infrastructure for linking simulations of various types at multiple locations to create realistic, complex, virtual "worlds" for the simulation of highly interactive activities. This infrastructure brings together systems built for separate purposes, technologies from different eras, products from various vendors, and platforms from various services and permits them to interoperate. DIS exercises are intended to support a mixture of virtual entities with computer-controlled behavior (computer-generated forces), virtual entities with live operators (human in-the-loop simulators), live entities (operational platforms and test and evaluation systems), and constructive entities (wargames and other automated simulations). DIS draws heavily on experience derived from the Simulator Networking (SIMNET) program developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), adopting many of SIMNET's basic concepts and heeding lessons learned.

In order for DIS to take advantage of currently installed and future simulations developed by different organizations, a means had to be found for assuring interoperability between dissimilar simulations. These means were developed in the form of industry consensus standards. The open forum (including government, industry, and academia) chosen for developing these standards was a series of semi-annual workshops on standards for the interoperability of distributed simulations, which began in 1989. The results of the workshops have been several IEEE Standards along with supporting documentation. These standards provide application protocol and communication services and profile standards to support DIS interoperability. In addition, an IEEE recommended practice for exercise management and feedback provides user guidelines for setting up and conducting a DIS exercise.

The relationship between the component documents comprising the set of IEEE DIS documents is shown in the figure below. Used together, these standards and recommended practices will help to ensure an interoperable simulated environment.

The interoperability components addressed by these standards and recommended practices are as follows:

a) Application protocols

b) Communication services and profiles

c) Exercise management and feedback

IEEE Std 1278.1-1995, IEEE Standard for Distributed Interactive Simulation-Applications Protocols, defines the format and semantics of data messages, also known as Protocol Data Units (PDUs), that are exchanged between simulation applications and simulation management. The PDUs provide information concerning simulated entity states, the type of entity interactions that take place in a DIS exercise, and data for management and control of a DIS exercise. This standard also specifies the communication services to be used with each of the PDUs. These services are defined in IEEE Std 1278.2-1995, IEEE Standard for Distributed Interactive Simulation-Communication Services and Profiles.

An additional, non IEEE document is required for use with IEEE Std 1278.1-199.5 This document is entitled Enumeration and Bit-encoded Values for use with IEEE 1278.1 and is available from the Tactical Warfare Simulation and Technology Information Analysis Center at the Institute for Simulation and Training of the University of Central Florida.¹

IEEE Std 1278.2-1995 defines the communication services required to support the message exchange described in IEEE Std 1278.1-1995. In addition, IEEE Std 1278.2-1995 provides several communication profiles that meet the specified communications requirements.

Taken together, IEEE Std 1278.1-1995 and IEEE Std 1278.2-1995 provide the necessary information exchange for the communications element of DIS.

This recommended practice provides guidelines for establishing a DIS exercise, managing the exercise, and providing proper feedback. This recommended practice is to be used in conjunction with IEEE Std 1278.1-1995 and IEEE Std 1278.2-1995 .

Revisions are anticipated to each of these standards and recommended practice within the next few years to clarify existing material, to correct possible errors, and to incorporate new related material. Future versions of these documents will contain information concerning additional interoperability components that are currently in the process of being defined.

Scope

This recommended practice establishes guidelines for exercise management and feedback in Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) exercises. It provides recommended procedures to plan, set up, execute, manage, and assess a DIS exercise. It is one in a series of standards that addresses the interoperability among interconnected simulation applications.