The NATO Naval Armaments Group on Ship Design, NG6, is investigating the development of modeling and simulation (M&S) standards and common frameworks for ship virtual prototypes. In 1997, NG6 established a Specialist Team on Simulation Based Design and Virtual Prototyping (ST-SBDVP) to explore the technologies and processes of SBDVP applied to the acquisition of naval warships. The Specialist Team delivered initial guidance in the form of an Allied Naval Engineering Publication (ANEP) in 2001. The Specialist Team has since been promoted to a full Sub-Group under NG6—SG61 “Virtual Ships”—tasked to develop the NATO standards for virtual ship representation during acquisition.

The original Specialist Team’s program of work included development of a multi-national common framework for M&S and technology demonstration, under the moniker of the NATO/PfP Interoperability and Re-Use Study, NIREUS. The main objective of NIREUS is to “bridge the gap between theory and practice” by providing practical use cases to illustrate the ST-SBDVP’s documented guidance. NIREUS first achieved a working technology demonstrator High Level Architecture (HLA) federated simulation in October 2001. The NIREUS “worked example” examined ship/air vehicle systems interoperability. Use of a common simulation framework enabled the nations to examine operational envelopes cost-effectively and without risk of life. The NIREUS federation development involved the efforts of 13 nations, achieving multi-national simulation interoperability on an unprecedented scale.

NIREUS activities are continuing under SG61, with the primary intent to implement use case applications that exercise potential standards. Use case applications are chosen from specific military problems of interest to the SG61 nations. Technical requirements for standards demonstration include not only simulation interoperability issues, but interplay with data models and workflow process aspects as well. There are currently 16 nations participating in development and use of NIREUS. VisiTech serves as the International Project Team Leader for NIREUS, responsible for overall technical coordination of NIREUS efforts and reporting to NATO headquarters on milestone developments.