Operational activities are carried out in a certain battlefield environment, which has a great impact on the combat effectiveness, weapon performance, communication and intelligence search capabilities of troops. Through battlefield environment modeling and simulation to study the impact of battlefield environment on combat, it is of great significance to win the war. The battlefield of high-tech war has expanded from land, ocean and air to outer space, and the operational deployment and operations have changed from plane to three-dimensional. The whole war will be launched simultaneously on the ground, air, sea, underwater, outer space, front and rear. This highly three-dimensional battlefield requires that battlefield environment modeling and simulation must establish a comprehensive and real simulation object and environment from plane to three-dimensional, from inner space to outer space, from front to rear, to provide more valuable simulation results and conclusions.
Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) technology has developed from SIMENT to DIS2.X, IEEE1278.X and ALSP protocols, and then to today's HLA, all of which are trying to solve the problems in the field of system modeling and simulation (M& S). Most of the simulators are independent in application and simulation. The interoperability and reusability between devices are poor; development, maintenance and use are time-consuming and costly; verifiability, validity and confidence are poor. HLA is to build such a framework from the architecture. It can cover all kinds of simulation systems involved in M& S field as far as possible, and is beneficial to their interoperability and reusability. At the same time, it can make use of the developing new technology to meet the simulation requirements of complex large-scale systems.
Battlefield Environment Modeling and Simulation Platform Tool
VR-Forces
VR-Forces is a powerful and flexible C++ simulation development toolkit, which is mainly used to develop, generate and implement battlefield scenarios. It provides all necessary simulation means for tactical command training simulator, threat generation system, behavior model test system and computer force generation system. In VR-Forces application, a humanized graphical user interface is configured, which enables non-programmers to deploy their forces, create action routes and route points, assign tasks and arrange plans by simple mouse clicks and keyboard input. During scenario execution, VR-Forces entities can interact with terrain, detect, engage with enemy forces and calculate damage levels. Without any programming, the dynamic models, sensor characteristics and damage models of various mobile vehicles can be changed by editing parameter configuration text files.
VR-Vantage
VR-Vantage is MAK's latest three-dimensional visualization tool. It can display simulation elements such as terrain, ships and vehicles with high fidelity. The roaming control module makes it easy for the observer to get to any position in the scene. The cockpit mode in VR-Vantage can be used as the development platform of the hardware-in-the-loop simulator. Using GL-Studio to create a table operating platform to achieve the first view of the cockpit simulation vision.
StealthXR
StealthXR is MAK's latest three-dimensional sand table display tool, which provides a series of advanced visualization features and technologies to increase the user's view of the virtual world. The solid model is represented by a three-dimensional colored bold model, and the distant entity can be clearly seen by adjusting the display ratio. When zooming in or out of view, these animation observations of the models commonly used in Stealth XR can be made, and the real textured models can be dynamically switched. Scenarios can be sorted automatically by using a single icon or model to represent multiple overlapping entities. StealthXR originally supports HLA and DIS protocols, but it can also be tailored by importing entity locations through Plug and Play application interfaces and tracking various C4I protocols or scenario file formats.
Data Logger
MAK Data Logger is a simple and easy-to-use system for capturing and replaying simulation data. By using a simple graphical user interface, the simulation information of HLA and DIS can be recorded in a file for calling, playing and evaluating the process and effect of simulation training at any time.
Data Logger provides some standard VCR-like functions such as pause, fast forward and slow motion (including forward and backward) to create more effective demonstration and analysis effects. Velocity and acceleration vectors can be adjusted to accommodate the desired playback speed during pause or non-real-time playback. By using annotations, you can create bookmarks for specific events, such as firing or exploding a target, so that the signature word jumps directly to a specific location when the action is replayed afterwards. Annotations can be added during recording or during playback. When recorded federations adopt HLA time management mechanism, data can be replayed either in real time or in post-event behavior replay system under time management mechanism.
Underlying distributed network components
MAK RTI
MAK RTI (Real-time Running Support Environment) is the fastest way to exchange data in HLA simulation. This efficient and easy-to-use tool minimizes the simulation requirements for processor performance, network bandwidth and storage devices. MAK RTI implements a complete HLA interface specification (including version 1.3 and IEEE1516) and has been certified by the Modeling and Simulation Office of the United States Department of Defense to conform to the HLA specification.
MAK RTI has been proven to be a complete solution for battlefield training. It has been used in a variety of projects and large-scale exercises, including the Air Force's distributed mission synthesis exercises, the U.S. Army's virtual test training ground SEIT, NATO's First Wave and RDECOM's armor piercing test training. Among all the reasons why MAK RTI has been chosen as a large-scale and small-scale simulation tool, the most important reason is that it supports various forms of network topology layout and structure, including LAN and World Wide Web operations. When federates are paralyzed, it can be perfectly restored, and it is easy to configure networks and support platforms on a large scale. 。
VR-Link
Using the VR-Link network toolkit, various simulators and virtual reality simulation applications based on the High Level Architecture (HLA) or Distributed Interactive Simulation Protocol (DIS) of the United States Department of Defense can be easily and quickly connected through the network. VR-Link has powerful functions, easy-to-use programming interface, and expert-level technical support background reduces risks, costs and time required to maintain existing simulation applications or develop new simulations. VR-Link simulation is fully compatible with HLA, and supports DIS's critical compatibility for inheriting existing simulation projects. Using VR-Link, hardware-in-the-loop simulator and external simulation operation model can be easily connected to the network environment based on standard distributed simulation protocol.
VR-Exchange
VR-Exchange is a general translator in distributed simulation. By using VR-Exchange, multiple simulators using different simulation HLA RTI, different FOM tables and even different simulation protocols can be connected together. In some cases, this bridge is necessary because it is unrealistic to have everyone use the same protocol, the same FOM table, and the same RTI platform. In some other cases, such bridges are also necessary because the system architecture implements hierarchical designs such as federated cascades. In order to support large-scale integration of LVC (live, virtual, build), such a bridge is usually needed to support compatibility and interoperability between simulation and C4I systems. VR-Exchange provides solutions for all these situations.
Typical Application Architecture of Battlefield Environment Modeling and Simulation
The typical applications based on MAK products include weapon effectiveness evaluation, hardware-in-the-loop simulator training, large-scale multi-node simulation applications and so on.
