November 2009
The GMU C4I Center hosted a major technical event of the NATO Modeling and Simulation Group
on 1-6 Nov 2009 at our Prince William Campus. The event culminated four years of development
by the group, known as MSG-048, in a technology called Coalition Battle Management Language.
Command and Control and Simulation software from eight nations was combined into a single
system of systems and evaluated by operational military experts, who recommend itd further
development. The event concluded with a briefing and demonstration for about fifty military
leaders from the US and NATO nations.
The C4I Center's contribution to the project was the Scripted BML Web Service that provided a
repository and communications mechanism for all of the other software systems. That work was
supported by the US Army Simulation to C4I (SIMCI) program, which also supported participation
of US Army Command and Control system MCS and US Army Simulation system OneSAF.
July 2009
C4I faculty member Bernard Zeigler was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Society
for Modeling and Simulation, International
(SCS)
in July, 2009. This honor is accompanied
by a Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding visionary leadership and dedication to
increasing the effectiveness and broadening the application of simulation. The award
affirms that the inductee's thoughts, words and activities have significantly impacted
not only his specific field, but also the use of modeling and simulation throughout the world.
In receiving the award, Zeigler became the first person to have been honored in almost all
the award categories in the Society's slate.
Bernard Zeigler's biography is available
here.
24-26 June 2009
A team from the C4I Center presented an invited workshop on Battle Management
Language at the IDGA C2 Summit Conference, held at Georgetown University
24-26 June 2009. Dr. Stan Levine, Dr. Michael Hieb, Colonel (retired) Martin
Kleiner, and Dr. Mark Pullen presented system, linguistic, doctrinal,
and technical details respectively. Many favorable comments were received regarding
the presenters' knowledgeable treatment of their subjects.
See
conference program.
4-5 February 2009 C4I Center Presents International Symposium
The GMU C4I Center's Battle Management Language (BML) program hosted
a BML Symposium lasting two days, with presenters from government,
academia, and industry. Keynotes were presented by Pentagon Army Operations
staff element and Communications/Information staff element,
as well as the Army Topographic Engineering Center. The conference
focused on issues involved in BML implementation, which is newly
possible since the BML activities, in which the C4I Center plays
a major role, has begun to mature. The symposium had about 90
attendees, roughly 2/3 from the US and 1/3 from coalition partners.
The
agenda
and
presentation slides
are available
here.
2-3 February 2009 C4I Center Hosts NATO Group
The GMU C4I Center played host to a group of about twenty
technical and operational experts from NATO nations engaged
in developing a Coalition Battle Management Language (BML).
Representativess from Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands,
Norway, Spain, the USA and the United Kingdom met for two days to review
the results of their 2008 program and plan activities for 2009.
GMU has developed the BML Web Service used by the group and
provides technical assistance to its work. More information is
available at http://www.rta.nato.int/ACTIVITY_META.asp?ACT=MSG-048.
1-4 December 2008 GMU C4I Center team plays central role
in NATO demonstration.
The C4I Center contributed
the central Battle Management Web Service to a
demonstration conducted in Orlando, Florida by the
NATO Modeling and Simulation Group Technical Activity
48 (MSG-048), at the InterService/Industry
Training, Simulation and Education Conference 2008.
The demonstration showed software components from
six nations: France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway,
the United Kingdom, and the United States. These components
were interoperating via the Battle Management Language that has been
spearheaded by Dr. Michael Hieb of the C4I Center. The
demonstration focused on the ability to exchange orders
and reports among command and control systems and simulations.
The work is expected to lead to an operational capability for
NATO coalition partners to conduct training and mission
rehearsal using the standard software that has been
developed separately for use by individual nations. This
will mean a big step forward in readiness for a small
investment in technology, as NATO forces are able to
deploy more rapidly by reducing their time in preparation.