AMSP-01 NATO modelling and simulation standards profile

What it is

AMSP-01, the NATO Modelling and Simulation Standards Profile (NMSSP), is a reference document published by NATO's Modelling and Simulation Group (NMSG). It is not itself a technical specification: it is a survey of the standards available for building modelling and simulation (M&S) systems, organised so that a nation or NATO body choosing a technical architecture for a simulation programme can see what exists, what NATO currently recommends, and where the gaps are. Edition E, Version 1 (September 2021) is the current edition.

AMSP-01 is covered by a NATO Standardization Recommendation, STANREC 4815, and the document says plainly that everything in it "can be seen as covered by the same STANREC, hence, recommended by NATO," and that these standards "are not formally mandated by NATO unless they are covered by a specific NATO Standardization Agreement (STANAG)." Only one standard in the whole profile crosses that line: the High Level Architecture (HLA) is, in the document's own words, "the unique interoperability standard mandated by NATO," through STANAG 4603. Everything else in AMSP-01 is a recommendation a nation or programme is invited to use, not a requirement it is bound to meet by the profile alone.

The document names its own audience directly: it is aimed "specifically at NATO member and partner nations, as well as national and NATO organizations, which have requirements to effectively use M&S in support of NATO, coalition and national requirements," and it describes itself as "a suitable guideline document for the relevant M&S standards that should be used in development projects and procurement projects." A commercial supplier is not who this document is written for. Where it reaches a supplier at all, it does so indirectly: through a tender, a contract, or a federation agreement that names one of the standards the profile lists, most commonly HLA under STANAG 4603.

Eight categories, organised around one engineering process

AMSP-01 groups standards using the seven steps of the Distributed Simulation Engineering and Execution Process (DSEEP, IEEE 1730): define simulation objectives, perform conceptual analysis, design the simulation environment, develop it, integrate and test it, execute it, and analyse the results. Against that process it defines eight categories: Methodology, Architecture and Processes; Conceptual Modelling and Scenarios; M&S Interoperability; Information Exchange Data Models; Synthetic Physical Environment; Analysis and Evaluation; Miscellaneous; and Software Engineering.

Methodology, architecture and processes. Architecture Frameworks has no M&S-specific standard, though the NATO Architecture Framework (NAF) is "recognized and supported." Systems Engineering Processes centres on the DSEEP itself, successor to the now-obsolete HLA FEDEP. Verification and Validation lists the SISO Generic Methodology for V&V and Acceptance (GM-VV) and the US DoD's VV&A Recommended Practices Guide and Templates, alongside a candid admission: "no international standard exists to support the V&V and certification of simulation input data," and no methodology exists at all for verifying and validating Human Behaviour Representation.

Conceptual modelling and scenarios. The SISO Base Object Models (BOMs), the Military Scenario Definition Language (MSDL) and its successor C2SIM-Initialize, and the Guideline on Scenario Development (GSD). Conceptual modelling itself has no dedicated M&S standard yet; the profile notes general software-engineering standards fill that gap for now.

M&S interoperability. HLA (IEEE 1516 series) is the standard the document calls mandated, through STANAG 4603. Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS, IEEE 1278 series) sits alongside it as current, though its own earlier NATO cover, STANAG 4482, was cancelled and superseded by STANAG 4603. The category also names the Gateway Description and Filtering Languages (GDL/GFL), UCATT's laser-engagement interface, and WebLVC, an emerging protocol for bringing browser-based clients into HLA or DIS federations.

Information exchange data models. The HLA Object Model Template, the SISO Reference for Enumerations for Simulation (covered by STANAG 4855, listed as Study status), the Real-time Platform Reference FOM, the NATO Education and Training Network Federation Architecture and FOM Design (NETN FAFD, published separately as AMSP-04 under STANREC 4800), Link 11 and Link 16 simulation, and C2SIM (covered by STANAG 4856, Study status), which supersedes the older Coalition Battle Management Language. STANAG 5602 (SIMPLE) appears here too, named as a non-M&S-specific standard still widely used to carry Link 11/16 data inside simulations.

Synthetic physical environment. The largest category: source data formats (DTED, GeoTIFF, KML, Shapefile, GRIB, NetCDF), 3D model formats (OpenFlight as the de facto industry standard, with X3D and COLLADA as alternatives), the SEDRIS suite of eight ISO/IEC standards for representing and interchanging environmental data, the OGC CDB standard for synthetic-environment databases, RIEDP for reusing environmental data production processes, and CIGI for image-generator interfacing.

Analysis and evaluation. One named standard, the Distributed Debrief Control Architecture (DDCA), against an acknowledged gap: "no official or 'de facto' standard could be identified" more broadly for this domain.

Miscellaneous and software engineering. No M&S-specific standards in either category, but two flagged problems: no standard yet supports integrating simulation into distance-learning courses, and "the difficult issue of addressing security challenges for M&S is currently not covered by any standards."

What NATO's own assessment says

The document's conclusions are unusually candid about the state of the field: "where there are too many 'standards' in support of a particular domain it means there is 'no real standard'," and it lists ten recommendations for where standardisation work still needs to happen, among them integrating Architecture Framework concepts into a multi-architecture overlay for the DSEEP, continuing work on M&S-as-a-Service, reinforcing standards for Human Behaviour Representation, addressing extended-reality (xR) interfaces, and resolving the overlap between competing interoperability and environmental-data standards.

Getting the document

NATO publishes AMSP-01 through the NATO Standardization Document Database at no charge. ComplyTrain does not sell it or host a copy; the NSDD listing for AMSP-01 is the source.

Standards it references

• STANAG 4603Background
• AMSP-04Background
• STANREC 4800Background
• STANAG 5602Background
• STANAG 4856Background
• STANAG 4855Background