Realistic Communications Effects for Evaluation of Tactical Command and Control and Situational Awareness applications

The concept of Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) test environments is central tenet for OTC’s BCNIS program, which will provide realistic situational awareness (SA) and command and control (C2) tactical environment to support operational testing, without the costs and constraints of deploying a large number of physical units in the field. However, three primary issues remain unresolved for the successful deployment of LVC in the BCNIS framework: • Identification of appropriate integration interfaces between the physical and constructive networks that are operationally meaningful. • Identification of the requirements for the fidelity of the communication network models as well as the fidelity of wireless communication effects due to buildings, foliage, terrain and similar factors that are operationally meaningful. • Identification of methods for data collection and instrumentation of the LVC NUT, so that evaluators can monitor and analyze the complex interactions of LVC networks. In Phase 1 of the SBIR effort, SNT will precisely identify the requirements and feasible mechanisms for such an LVC environment from the interface, fidelity, and data collection & analysis perspectives outlined above. In Phase 2, SNT will develop a prototype of the LVC Network Integration solution and demonstrate its applicability to the BCNIS environment.