The Military Scenario Definition Language (MSDL) enables the creation of military scenarios that can be shared and reused between a variety of simulations, between simulations and C4I adapter technologies, and between C4I devices.
This standard also provides a mechanism for reusing military scenarios between either independent or interoperating simulations.
Traditionally, simulation scenario specifications and associated tools have been non-standard and closely coupled with the simulations that they support. This coupling has severely limited 3rd party tool development as well as the automated sharing of scenarios between simulations and between Command, Control, Communications, and Computers and Intelligence (C4I) devices. MSDL development has concentrated on the following abilities:
When interoperating different simulation products or operating simulation products independently, it is necessary to have initial scenario conditions in common. Typically, this requires a separate scenario data package to be formatted for each target simulation, an extremely costly and time-consuming process that also involves the interpretation of content when going from one simulation product to another. Relying heavy on substantial human-in-the-loop effort with minimal automated support, misinterpretations and transcription errors are common and require added expense to correct.
The military simulation community has shown how a scenario generated by one source and used by many simulations pays dividends by allowing real-world C4I systems to generate military scenarios used to initialize independently developed simulations. The result is a consistent starting point between the real-world system and the training or analytic simulation system being used to populate, stimulate, or portray the real-world systems.
Presagis has participated in the development of this standard since the creation of the first MSDL workshops. The SISO (Simulation Interoperability Standards Organisation) is about to designate Version 1.0 of MSDL as an international standard, and resources investment by Presagis in the drafting group has been acknowledged as an important contributor to this designation.