scope:

The NATO Industrial Advisory Group Sub Group 52 (NIAG SG-52) was tasked by the NATO Naval Group 5 (NG/5) AC/141(IEG/5) to conduct a pre-feasibility study on Naval Combat System Standardization. One principal area was to investigate extensions to the Shipboard Open System Environment (SOSE) that was developed during previous study efforts.

Numerous national and NATO programs have demonstrated the benefits that can be derived, in terms of effectiveness and cost reduction, from the use of open system infrastructure elements for communication, data handling, and data processing on board combatant ships. This concept has been given the name of Shipboard Open System Environment (SOSE). The application of the SOSE concept to naval combat systems results in clear benefits of relatively more state-of-the-art performance and functionality, significantly lower customer development cost/risk, and shorter development time when compared to the traditional approaches. It has been further recognized that implementations of the SOSE strongly benefit from being based on Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) technologies and products that are compliant with international standards having a wide application basis. Incorporating Open System Environment infrastructure elements into a system from the beginning consequently allows for more focus to be applied to the Combat System application-unique functions that must be developed for the specific military mission.