Photo By Frank Schiller | French service members testing the Federated Mission Networking (FMN) to the tactical...... read more read more
NATO’s Coalition Warrior Interoperability Exercise (CWIX) 2021 was held June 7-25 from its main execution site at the Joint Force Training Centre (JFTC) in Bydgoszcz, Poland and remotely across thirteen time zones. The aim of CWIX was to test and develop the interoperability between deployable national and NATO Communication and Information Systems (CIS) in a coalition environment. Due to the ongoing effects of COVID-19, this year’s CWIX was a hybrid event with many nations’ engineers, planners, operators and industry participating from the JFTC or online.
Thirty nations participated in CWIX 2021, conducting over 10,000 technical interoperability tests across the land, maritime, air and cyber domain with many highlights including:
The NATO Response Force relies on robust situational awareness to provide a Recognized Ground Picture all the way down to the tactical level. Testing at CWIX enhances situational awareness that can prevent ‘blue on blue’ incidents, meaning friendly fire incidents. During this year’s CWIX, the Land Focus Area tested a multi-level approach to share, distribute and receive Command & Control (C2) operational data. The result was a seamless data exchange that provided commanders and decision-makers with the right information at the right time to enable better decision-making.
The French ALLIANCE system - Applicatif LogicieL Interopérable d’Aide Numérique sur Calculateur Embarqué (digitally aided interoperable software for mounted devices) supports the warfighter by better coordinating close air support (CAS) in NATO operations. By participating in CWIX, this digitally aided close air support (DaCAS) C2 system was able to test its compatibility with multiple interface standards to decrease the time needed to exchange data. Testing complemented and improved radio message exchange by extending the transmission range and minimizing misunderstanding due to voice transmission and language issues.
Federated Mission Networking (FMN) is an important part of CWIX. The principles and specifications of FMN were tested continually across most focus areas. Many nations tested their deployed systems, ensuring their compliance with the most up-to-date standards and specifications. A few nations participated to confirm their ability to connect to a deployed network that enables the exchange of data from day one of a NATO mission. Other nations explored future specifications in areas such as Protected Core Networking (PCN) using systems that operated at the tactical edge; the results will be fed back onto roadmaps to take forward FMN, allowing nations to design interoperability into systems as they are being built.
“If we didn’t have the interoperability, we would just be thirty plus nations“ said Brigadier General Poul Primdahl, responsible for Capability Requirements at NATO Allied Command Transformation. “The interoperability is the glue that makes us fight like an alliance. It’s actually the synergy of the thirty nations. So, if you’re not able to cooperate and be interoperable, we would not succeed. This is also why such a testing of the interoperability is hugely important.” said Primdahl.
As well as providing a hub to connect all the distributed and remote testing sites, JFTC also provided Modelling & Simulation (M&S) experts. Their experts led a range of interoperability activities using simulation systems with many improvements to newly identified standards and solutions. These solutions will benefit future NATO missions by providing safe and cost-effective training scenarios in a simulated environment.
“At CWIX 2021, we improve our modelling and simulation capabilities” said Stefano Izzo, JFTC Modelling and Simulation Specialist. “With modelling and simulation, we can train troops on realistic scenarios without huge costs or great risks. This allows NATO nations and partners to plan for every foreseeable situation. For the very first time, JFTC is leading the Modelling and Simulation Focus Area independently. Our work aims to make NATO training and exercises more realistic for the warfighter” said Izzo.
CWIX is part of the ‘Interoperability Continuum’ of NATO ACT-led interoperability events that also includes the TIDE Sprint and TIDE Hackathon events, all of which improve Alliance and partners’ ability to work together coherently, effectively and efficiently to achieve Allied objectives. Forthcoming events from the Interoperability Continuum include the autumn edition of TIDE Sprint taking place in Virginia Beach, VA, USA in October 2021.
| Date Taken: | 06.29.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 06.30.2021 10:37 |
| Story ID: | 399975 |
| Location: | PL |
| Web Views: | 409 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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