An Interview with Colonel John M. Ferrell, Deputy Director, NATO Modelling & Simulation Centre of Excellence, US Army

In the run up to SMi’s 7th annual conference on Joint Forces Simulation and Training, Colonel John M. Ferrell, Deputy Director, NATO Modelling & Simulation Centre of Excellence, US Army, Italy, was asked a few questions regarding the conference taking place on 3rd and 4th February and about the challenges currently facing Collaborative Simulation and Training methods.

Details are available at www.jointforcestraining.com.

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SMi: What are the main challenges currently facing Collaborative Simulation and Training methods and how can these be overcome?

The big three challenges are Interoperability, Security, and Adaptability. With Interoperability, we must better balance technical development with policy, doctrine and standards. This is tough for a Nation and exponentially so for a coalition. Security, specifically network security, will always be an issue. As we develop cloud based and web-enabled simulation systems, this challenge branches into more complex problem sets.

Securing a distributed simulation environment is critical to future collaborative training scenarios. Adaptability will also be critical. Being able to quickly adjust training capabilities, along with training scenarios to meet an ever widening range of military mission sets will be extremely important. We need to be able to quickly adapt our training paradigms to meet emerging and rapidly evolving threats.

SMi: Are there any particular sessions you are particularly looking forward to and why?

Simulation as a Cloud Service (Andy Fawkes) – NATO’s M&S Community of Interest through the NATO M&S Group (NMSG) and other partnerships has shown great interest in this topic. During our annual Computer Assisted Exercise (CAX) Forum in Vincenza last September, we dedicated a panel discussion to this topic. At the NATO M&S COE, we see ourselves playing a critical role in the future development of this capability as well as a host for web-based simulation services.

SMi: How will your talk benefit delegates to the event?

On Day 1, I will participate in a panel discussion on Needs, Wants and Latest Developments. My experience as a Warfighter, U.S. Army Simulation Officer and as Director of the NATO M&S Coe will hopefully offer a unique perspective on this topic.

On Day 2, I will be providing an overview of the NATO M&S COE. As a fairly new organization, I hope to inform the audience of our mission and role in NATO’s M&S Community, to create understanding of our capabilities that we provide for the alliance, and develop new potential partnerships with industry, academia and other government bodies.

SMi: Are there any particular military end-users or commercial companies you are looking forward to meeting at the event and why?

I hope to meet with military, industry and academia representatives to continue developing current and future partnerships for the COE.

SMi: How do you see emerging technologies impacting upon joint forces simulation and training in the future?

As technologists continue to overcome barriers to technical interoperability and cloud computing and even quantum computing become more prevalent, I foresee common cloud-based (web-enabled) environments with continuously running scenarios where virtual and constructive simulators can enter the fight at any point, with C2 architectures configured through a collaborative planning process and be ‘virtually’ together in the synthetic environment.

As an example, an entity such as the Joint Warfare Center can ‘publish’ a notional ACO/ATO daily and pilots from all over the alliance can get their missions and climb into their home-station flight simulators and fly their mission, while supporting field commanders conducting CAX training at NATO and National training centers.

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Joint Forces Simulation and Training

03 – 04 February 2016

Holiday Inn Kensington Forum, London

www.jointforcestraining.com