Metamodeling NATO Operation Orders: a proof-of-concept to deal with digitalization of the battlefield

Abstract

Digitalization of the whole society changes the way Systems-of-Systems have to be considered. Remaining independently operated and managed, SoS increase their collaboration skills using shared or cooperated information systems. People can be seen as particular digital subsystems due to smart equipments they can use. Military operations, which are considered as typical SoS, are no exception to this fact. New operational doctrines have to be created to take advantage of those new capabilities. In this paper, we propose to develop methods and tools inspired by software engineering to create new automated capabilities in battlefield engineering. More precisely, we explain the direction which should be considered in the area of battlefield engineering in order to deal with those new capabilities. Inspired from Model-Based Engineering, we realized a proof-of-concept showing how to change textual operation orders with graphical ones. The latter can be exported in a common standardized format, that enables digital interpretation. We present the OPORD-ML language which is based on a metamodel inspired from a NATO operation order standard. It is supported by an automatically generated tool.

Digitalization in Next Generation C2: Research Agenda from Model-Based Engineering Perspective

“…In our previous work [2], we proposed a metamodel that provides a structured representation of an operation order (OPORD) as described by NATO's STANAG 2014 [3] standard. But the operation order is just the ultimate product before the operation, that results from the planning process by the sonamed J5 bureau.…”

“…In this forthcoming context, because some soldiers are replaced with drone units, any natural-language based format is not suitable anymore, as such orders could not be interpreted nor executed by machines. Model-based representation for orders [2] is a first step to solve the issue. Novel interfaces are required to let small crew command and control the whole squadron.…”

“…This perspective calls for a new approach to digital orders, beyond the construction of an information system for information centralization and order distribution. This led us to propose a model-driven approach for operation orders [2], i.e., to foster machine-processable format for operation orders.…”