Virtual strike warfare environment (VSWE) 9+ event

Abstract

The Joint Strike Fighter Program Office (JSFPO) uses a Virtual Strike Warfare Environment (VSWE), which consists of model-in-the-loop, human-in-the-loop, and/or hardware-in-the-loop simulators to define F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) operational scenarios. These events have previously focused on operational requirements definition in the context of air-to-ground (A/G) or air-to-air (A/A) combat using separate pilot-in-the-loop simulation architectures. Additionally, geographically distributed combat simulations of these types were conducted within CONUS only. The VSWE 9+ event objectives were to demonstrate a UK/US simulation environment that will facilitate combined A/A and A/G evaluations of the F-35 aircraft over a distributed wide area network. The primary objectives for this event were satisfied with no visible degradation in performance from the operators' or observers' perspective. The bandwidth requirement of 2 Mbps sustained was adequate for event completion. Distributed operations on the Combined Federated Battle Laboratories Network (CFBLNet) were transparent to similar operations conducted at a single location. The high performance computing (HPC) assets provided the necessary processing to host the core simulation software and databases to run the event in real time. The High Level Architecture (HLA) facilitated simulation reuse and interoperability. The VSWE 9+ event demonstrated the capability to reuse and merge two combat simulation environments into a single environment over a wide area network.