SEA-led team delivers AIMS related findings

The SEA-led Architectures, Interoperability and Management of Simulations (AIMS) team has delivered its findings on the future of modelling and simulation to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The team, consisting of SEA, BAE Systems, QinetiQ and Thales, has conducted a wide range of research related to the AIMS concept over the past four years.

The AIMS programme aims to enable the delivery of a single environment, such that users can create capability from modelling and simulation components and services which are inherently interoperable. A major outcome from AIMS has been the development of the concept of Modelling and Simulation as a Service (MSaaS).

The MSaaS concept provides a potential 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 capability using MSaaS provides the opportunity to realise significant benefits, in terms of greater accessibility to simulation, enhanced sharing and reuse of assets, rapid composition and deployment of simulations and efficient use of hardware.

The AIMS team provided a practical demonstration of MSaaS to the MoD to highlight how MSaaS could be employed to support future training and joint force exercise activities. The team demonstrated 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.

The team also modified existing parallel capabilities in the defence geospatial services area developed by Envitia, to provide a concept searchable registry of simulation assets.

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