Multi-Domain Synthetic Training Environments (Whitepaper)

See how the Hadean Platform is driving the transformation of collective training through multi-domain synthetic training environments.

Multi-Domain Synthetic Training Environments

Whitepaper

Introduction

The Transformation of Collective Training

The character of conflict is changing. As the modern battlefield complexifies, modern militaries are seeking ways to consolidate their technological advantage in the race for strategic, tactical and informational supremacy over their rivals. Global defence spending is at its highest in over a decade (exceeding $2 trillion for the first time in 2021, of which the US account for $801 billion), with a broad focus on ‘digital transformation’, and the ability to exploit cutting-edge technology to bolster collective strength at all levels of military operation.

In line with this, many current and future defence programmes are stressing the importance of collective training in Common or Single Synthetic Training Environments (CSE, SSE or STE). Several significant funding initiatives are pushing technology providers to achieve the technical innovations necessary to make them a reality.

Examples include:

The UK MoD’s Collective Training Transformation Programme (CTTP), seeking immersive multi-domain training systems that are interoperable, integrated, and hardwired for data capture, with its close links to the Defence Synthetic Environment Platform (DSEP), a multi-agent programmable modelling and simulation development environment for building explicit agent-based simulations.
The RAF’s GLADIATOR Programme, seeking synthetic training solutions that allow UK fighter jet pilots to train together virtually from various RAF bases.
Future Combat Air Systems (FCAS), driving the digital transformation of combat air.
NATO Modelling and Simulation Strategy, M&S Centre of Excellence, and Mission Training through Distributed Simulations (MTDS), continuing to drive common architecture and standardisation to create expansive and composable Dynamic Synthetic Environments.
US Digitization Modernization Program and the Synthetic Training Environment Cross-Functional Team pushing for cutting-edge digital capabilities to improve collective preparedness and effectiveness across domains.

Why collective training?

Domain and scenario specific training simulations have revolutionised our ability to prepare for military operations. By simulating real-world environments to a high degree of fidelity in immersive virtual environments, troops are able to develop their skills and familiarise themselves with operational tactics and protocols in a cost-effective, convenient and secure manner. The development of virtual simulations has therefore led to sharper and better prepared armed forces.

However, the technical limitations of legacy computational infrastructure and simulation technologies have, up to now, placed hard caps on the scale, connectivity and interoperability of synthetic environments.

Current simulation environments are built and used in isolation from each other, with no real-time synchronicity or interactivity between them. Their scope is further limited by the inability to dynamically incorporate live real-world data, as well as a lack of integration with broader operational activities through functionality such as analytics, exploratory simulation, and decision support.

This fragmentary approach to synthetic training does little to accustom troops to the realities of complex military operations, where the various military domains are often deployed in conjunction with each other amidst the strategic requirements of complex evolving circumstances. The lack of an ability to train in deeply integrated multi-domain single synthetic environments results in a less prepared force, and has to be made up for in the sporadic organisation of costly and logistically complex full-scale field exercises.

Consequently, there is a growing desire amongst technologically advanced militaries to fund projects that can push technical boundaries to bring about a new generation of multi-domain synthetic environments. The requirements are clear: to help achieve holistic preparedness by having users from all domains jointly training in a single high-fidelity, highly-concurrent, and deeply integrated synthetic environment that meets all of their simulation needs.

The Solution

Hadean has fundamentally reinvented the creation and deployment of synthetic environments, delivering a distributed computing platform that is tailor-made for building, powering, and connecting virtual worlds. By combining unprecedented scalability, composability and connectivity in spatial simulations with unbounded architectural flexibility and robust security, Hadean is uniquely positioned to enable and power multi-domain, multi-layered simulations that meet the demands of modern militaries.

The diagram below shows how Hadean uses a unique distributed processing model to bring various simulation systems, plug-ins and data libraries into a highly scalable and customisable Single Synthetic Environment (SSE) hub.

This whitepaper explains how Hadean enables interoperability, scale, data management, and security in multi-domain synthetic training environments:

Chapter 1: Interoperability

How the openness of the Hadean Platform enables flexibility in the bringing together of simulation engines, third-party data libraries and computing resources to create a centralised hub for synthetic environments that satisfy requirements across all domains.

Chapter 2: Scale

An introduction to the fundamental technologies underpinning Hadean's ability to unlock unprecedented scale and concurrency in synthetic environments.

Chapter 3: Data

How Hadean drives efficiency and flexibility in data management which, coupled with Hadean’s dynamic scaling and edge networking capabilities, enables rich data complexity in synthetic environments.

Chapter 4: Security

How the Hadean Platform ensures security in the development and deployment of synthetic environments, including the accreditations that make Hadean a trusted partner in Defence projects.

Interoperability

Bridging the domains with ultimate flexibility

Building multi-domain single synthetic environments that provide an accurate simulation of the various viewpoints, actions, and roles involved across each domain requires implementation of a variety of simulation engines, visualisation tools and third party data sources.

To bring this together requires a high degree of architectural flexibility, as well as an enormous amount of accessible computing power, the likes of which are impossible on legacy technologies.

The Hadean Platform provides distributed computing and edge networking technology that is purpose-built for achieving the scale and flexibility required of a multi-domain single synthetic environment.

Synthetics environments built on the Hadean Platform are able to support the following by default:

Multiple game and simulation engines, such as Unreal Engine, Unity, and VBS, as well as other proprietary engines.
Full integration of both legacy and new simulation engines for each domain, such as flight, maritime and land simulators.
Millions of simulation entities and thousands of concurrent users at high performance.
Seamless integration of third party data libraries, streams, and plugins, such as traffic, pattern of life, geospatial data, CGF, weather, etc.

Interoperability between engines and systems

Hadean’s unique dynamic provisioning and edge networking capabilities enable unparalleled scale in complex and expansive virtual environments.

Importantly for the creation of multi-domain synthetic environments, the Hadean Platform’s application of these capabilities is designed to be agnostic towards game and visualisation engines. As such, it supports popular engines such as Unreal Engine, VBS, Unity, and can be adapted with a thin bridge layer to support proprietary engines.

They can also integrate seamlessly with supporting third party libraries via an API, with a high-level of programmable parametrisation at run-time.

Example: a weather simulation library can be configured to feed updates to a simulation at a low tick rate (e.g. 10 seconds), even as the simulation runs at 60 Hz.

This kind of parameterisation enables efficiency and flexibility in the integration of third party systems, and is crucial for the large-scale implementation of data libraries required for modelling real-world circumstances at the highest possible fidelity, including terrain data, weapon behaviour, pattern of life, artificial intelligence, and so on.

Openness with regard to engines and data libraries means that the Hadean Platform and products can integrate with a military’s existing simulations, such as its flight and vehicle simulators, while simultaneously providing a powerful platform for the development of new environments.

Achieving this degree of agility at the platform level drastically decreases the cost and complexity of building and deploying a single synthetic environment, allowing militaries to immediately integrate their existing, proven systems, while providing endless scope for modifications, upgrades or replacements going forward.

Flexibility across computing environments

Running a multi-domain synthetic training environment at scale requires large amounts of computing power and deployment to numerous disparate clients.

The Hadean Platform operates on a distributed process model that permits seamless provisioning and pooling of resources across a variety of computing environments, including on-premise, private and public cloud, DMZ and air-gapped networks. This ensures scale and performance in multi-domain training simulations, as well as an unparalleled degree of agility and control over its deployment.

The choice of which computing environments to make use of, and how to combine them, is left entirely up to the end user. The Hadean Platform dynamically creates process clusters that can span any of these environments in a variety of configurations.

Example: An application can be deployed primarily to on-premise infrastructure and burst to the cloud whenever additional resources are required for maintaining performance. It also allows you to run the same application in different regions of a cloud network as a single synchronised cluster, enabling seamless concurrency between geographically disparate clients.

Hadean takes care of connecting machines securely and rapidly wherever they are, and allows configuration through its API. No code changes are necessary to make the application run in these different configurations - the Hadean Platform handles that complexity by abstracting it away from the applications that run upon it.

Simplifying DevOps

Traditionally, deploying applications across computing environments has required ongoing monitoring and support from dedicated experts, meaning significant DevOps overhead dedicated to tackling challenges such as containerisation, scaling across virtual computing environments, and managing networking requirements.

With the Hadean Platform, this functionality is provided much more powerfully and efficiently out of the box. This means a faster turnaround time for development, with reduced DevOps overhead, and more control given to end users.

Scale

Fidelity, interactivity, and performance at unprecedented scale

Fidelity, interactivity, and performance
at unprecedented scale

Beyond interoperability, the main constraint faced by virtual environments on legacy infrastructures is a simple lack of capability for scale and complexity.

Due to an unavailability of processing power, too many computationally intensive processes will cause performance issues that render the synthetic environment unusable. Moreover, legacy systems do not have the networking capabilities to handle large numbers of concurrent users, nor manage live data streams at low latency.

This forces militaries to settle for less accurate, less complex and less interconnected simulations, ultimately resulting in less prepared troops.

Hadean’s distributed computing technology overcomes the technical constraints of legacy systems entirely, provably enabling data-rich simulations to support millions of dynamic entities and thousands of connected users, with smooth performance throughout.

This is achieved through Hadean product libraries that are tailor-made to take advantage of the Hadean Platform's inherent extensibility in the creation of massive virtual worlds: Hadean Simulate and Hadean Connect.

Hadean Simulate

Hadean Simulate is a framework designed to support distributed processing for spatial simulations. It scales across different processors and physical machines, utilising more computing power as the simulations grow in complexity and size.

Hadean Simulate orchestrates the bulk of the processing required to guarantee performance and reliability in simulations involving millions of entities, high-fidelity visuals, granular interactivity, complex AI and physics systems, and tens of thousands of connected users.

It does this by dividing simulations into cells, and dynamically distributing resources to the point of need, allocating more cores to areas of high compute density, and provisioning and deprovisioning machines on demand. Its model drastically improves the speed, scalability and reliability of spatial simulations, enabling them to achieve the vast requirements of multi-domain single synthetic environments.

Hadean Connect

Hadean Connect is a networking solution that connects vast numbers of disparate clients across a distributed cloud and edge network. As more connections join the network, new nodes are automatically created, scaling to enable real-time data streaming and processing, regardless of computational intensity.

When used in combination with Hadean Simulate, Hadean Connect ensures low latency, globally distributed simulations are made available to thousands of connected clients to monitor, view and interact with in real-time.

Providing bidirectional data flow from a single rendezvous point, it comprises multiple locally-clustered nodes to ensure the most important information is processed and returned to the client as soon as possible. This dramatically reduces the “last mile” performance hit typically experienced by geographically-dispersed clients connecting to a service. This enables an unprecedented number of troops from various domains and locations to connect to the single synthetic environment reliably and at low latency.

Data Management

Maximising efficiency amidst massive complexity

Maximising efficiency
amidst massive complexity

The integration of real-world data is crucial for building accurate simulations that maximise real-world operational familiarity and readiness in the troops that use them.

As an example, NATO lists the kinds of real-world simulation data that it seeks as a baseline for its synthetic environments. These include:

Terrain and topography
Soil types (waterflow, slippage etc)
Weather (including effects on visibility and handling of equipment)
Demolition, destruction and particle physics
Weapon behaviour

It stipulates, moreover, that administrators must be able to update and customise these data integrations at will, in order for custom scenarios to be set up and simulated on demand.

Finally, the synthetic environment should feature performance and evaluation tracking systems to enable playback and in-depth analysis on training operations performed within it.

Bringing this level of data and functionality into a full-scale single synthetic environment requires not only large amounts of processing power and storage, but also efficient systems for managing, segmenting and distributing data in line with scenario design specifications.

Alongside provisioning the requisite computing resources through its dynamic scaling model, the Hadean Platform also achieves scalability and orchestration in data management through a number of other automated processes. These include:

Interest Management
Live data streaming
Playback, Analytics and Hadean Orchestrate

Interest Management

Hadean leverages Interest Management technology to ensure that users of a spatial simulation receive only the data that is relevant to their role.

This is important not only for accurate simulation design (for example, where the rendered point of view of an individual landed soldier is limited compared to that of a pilot in a fighter jet or staff in the command centre), but also for creating maximum efficiency in the use of computing resources for rendering the required data in real time.

Administrators are able to dynamically configure the parameters of Interest Management according to the requirements of a given scenario. For example, they may wish to play out a scenario where one team of participants sees a richer set of information about their teammates than the opposing team. This kind of dynamic data segregation is possible to configure through a customisable net code.

This is also an essential capability for joint force or multinational exercises, where militaries may wish to implement policies that restrict sharing of data between forces for tactical or security reasons.

Therefore, regardless of the engines and data integrations being used to build out the shared single synthetic environment, the Hadean Platform ensures its users only receive, and are therefore only required to render, the data that is relevant to their own usage.

This creates efficiency, and therefore scalability, in the allocation of computing resources for achieving fidelity and performance in a simulation throughout its run time, as well as flexibility in scenario design.

Live Data Streaming

To render simulations of real-world environments at the highest possible degree of fidelity, modern militaries can leverage data from a variety of third party libraries, as well as live sources such as IoT and military intelligence equipment.

The Hadean Platform enables data from a large array of sources to be managed and pushed back into the rendered view of the end user in real-time.

Hadean Connect, our edge networking service, ensures that this real-time data flow happens reliably and at low latency. By automatically deploying applications at the edges of a network, closest to live data sources, Connect ensures maximum efficiency in the synchronisation of data with end user clients across the cloud network, based on their individual needs within the simulation.

This also means that patches and updates can be rolled out to clients across a network without disrupting the run time of a simulation, nor requiring users to install updates manually. This creates a high level of agility and dynamism in the way that the single synthetic environment can be customised, updated and deployed to its users. The benefits of this with regard to security are discussed in Chapter 4.

Finally, Hadean Connect can be configured to exchange data using standard protocols such as DIS or HLA, so that no changes have to be made to existing hardware and software in order to take advantage of the benefits of edge networking.

Playback, analytics and Hadean Orchestrate

During and after run-time, the Hadean Platform allows data collected from the single synthetic environment to output to the visualisation, playback and analytics tools of the user’s choice.

This can be further integrated with Hadean Orchestrate, a solution for running parameterised what-if scenario simulation scenarios in parallel and collating the results, enabling quick, accurate, and data-driven analytics, performance evaluation, and decision support based on their outcomes.

As all processes on the Hadean Platform are designed to scale dynamically and on demand, the amount of simulation runs being undertaken in parallel can be continually increased to achieve results far more quickly and dynamically than on legacy infrastructures.

Security

Taking control over the management of threats

With an ever-increasing proliferation and sophistication of cybersecurity threats, it is essential to maintain agility and efficiency in the implementation of response and prevention measures across IT systems. Security is thus a core concern for synthetic environments built on the Hadean Platform.

Firstly, synthetic environments built and maintained on the Hadean Platform provide a high degree of control over security protocols. Not only can they be built and deployed over secured networks without any added operational complexity, but they also enable real-time patches to be developed and rolled out across the network without any disruption to the end user. This maximises agility in keeping the synthetic environment up and running, protecting against intrusion, and preventing leakage of sensitive data.

Finally, Hadean as an organisation is continually innovating and upgrading its security protocols and accreditations in order to remain a trusted partner for defence organisations.

Security Through Flexibility

The Hadean Platform allows for agile deployment on any kind of network, with abstraction principles ensuring that there is no practical difference between running on the public cloud and on tightly secured air-gapped or on-premise networks. The choice over levels of encryption and firewalling thus sits entirely in the hands of the user, without affecting functionality of the synthetic environment.

Furthermore, the Hadean Platform’s modular architecture allows applications to communicate seamlessly via an API.

The Hadean Platform’s advanced delta transfer and compression techniques require only code changes to be pushed through during a patch rollout, resulting in super-slim and fast updates from the developer’s local machine to the network, and between machines on the network. This means that updates and patches to a simulation can be deployed and propagated across the network dynamically, without disrupting client connections.

While enabling a high degree of flexibility in design and operational choices, this also has crucial benefits for security. It means that developers have a high degree of agility in responding and protecting against threats, with seamless integration of the developer's choice of cybersecurity tools, and automated patch rollouts that prevent vulnerabilities being left open through unpatched machines.

Organisation

As a technology provider, Hadean is committed to ensuring security for its users. This begins with the security protocols established in its own practices. Hadean possesses the necessary accreditations to meet the rigours of working direct to government, with every employee trained in the importance of, and necessary procedures for, maintaining security standards within the organisation.

Moreover, Hadean follows a practice of Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery for rapid deployment of its own patches and features to the Hadean Platform, with malware and virus detection activated for all deployed code.

Finally, our portal front end, which can also be run on any kind of network whether private or public, is equipped with the highest levels of enterprise encryption protocol for user management and private data handling, supported by regular penetration tests through an independent third party.

Who are we?

Delivering unparalleled distributed computing and vast synthetic environments

Hadean is a distributed computing company that has designed and built a distributed cloud platform that enables unlimited scalability and reliability in distributed cloud environments.

By leveraging the platform and its underlying smart scaling capabilities we are able to partner with Defence System Integrators and military clients across the world to achieve business and operational efficiency through the power of distributed computing.

Hadean’s next-generation Platform for Defence enables command, operations and training in a truly complex world.

Defence Partnerships

Working with Hadean

BAE

Collective training solutions

"By combining Hadean’s computing expertise with that with BAE Systems' intimate understanding of our customer built on decades of working with the world's leading militaries, we believe we can prove the benefits of this technology and deliver real advantage to training systems of the future. The battlespace our customers are operating in is changing rapidly so we need to change with it and by partnering with agile companies like Hadean and others we can meet this challenge.”

Andy Kendall, Director of Training Strategy, BAE Systems - Air

Challenge

Desire for a larger scale synthetic environment that all domains can plug in and train collectively, providing also decision support and situational awareness
Want for digitalisation to enhance fidelity, immersion and sustainability of training
Rapidly changing and increasingly complex battle spaces demanding an agile response that utilises all emerging technologies

Solution

Initial proof of concept using Hadean’s technology to create a large scale synthetic environment
Hadean platform used to parallelise simulations increasing the speed of scenario analysis
Compute power allocated dynamically to where in the simulation it is needed most, ensuring platform performance

Outcome

Enabled complex collective training scenarios in a secure environment
Leveraged data analytics and insights to improve the training capability and output
Provided the computational foundation of a future training and planning platform that makes use of emerging technologies, offering governments a significant step towards a digital backbone

Cloud Distributed Simulation Pathfinder for CTTP

“The Collective Training Transformation Programme (CTTP) is working with Army Innovation and Hadean to exploit new technology in the Future Collective Training System. This demonstration will deliver outputs that showcase how the technology from the commercial games industry could support transformation of training with the introduction of a Synthetic Environment Platform.”

Senior Responsible Owner (SRO), CTTP, UK Ministry of Defence, Mike Cooper

Working with the following:

Challenge

CTTP involves the discovery and testing of future collective training solutions with the view that legacy technology is restricting the ability for multiple domains to come together in single environments
The UK MoD's Defence Synthetic Environment Platform (DSEP) has the goal of attaining grater scale and cross-domain functionality in these simulations

Solution

Large scale synthetic environment made up of cells created, containing millions of entities
Hadean Platform scales computational demand dynamically, enabling synthetic environment to grow in size and complexity indefinitely

Outcome

Different 2D, 3D and Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) elements of training environments into one immersive simulation
New areas of collective training where teams in disparate live environments can operate remotely alongside troops exercising in the virtual world
Integration with Bohemia Interactive's VBS4 for digital assets, while also using live simulation system data

CAE

City Scale Synthetic Environment with 2M entities

“The complimentary skills and resources of CAE and Hadean will allow both parties to accelerate together towards these newly evolving applications, helping our customers realise their ambition to plan, train and rehearse quickly and efficiently in a complex and scalable digital environment of our making.”

Andrew Naismith, Managing Director, Defence and Security, CAE (UK)

Challenge

Desire to simulate an entire city, but previous synthetic environments restricted to a few thousand entities
Number of users connected into simulations restricted to 50-100
Need to include activity and lifestyle routines of entities and integrate Unreal Engine’s behaviour trees feature

Solution

Area was divided into a grid of cells, with each cell assigned a worker and each worker given an individual engine
Hadean Simulate handling cell boundary hand over comms
Hadean Connect given responsibility for calculating the relevant actors to send to each connected client
Simulation logic e.g. behaviour, terrain and physics all supported within UE instances

Outcome

Supported 2.2 million continuously active, AI controlled entities in a dense urban environment composed primarily of humans and ground vehicles and a smaller number of aerial vehicles
Supported a minimum of 300 independent, simultaneously connected and interactive actors
Insightful training operation completed

Cervus

Enhanced decision support for UK MoD's
Defence and Security Accelerator

“Cervus are immensely proud to be working with our partners at Hadean… Hadean’s distributed computing platform will significantly reduce the associated costs and increase the speed of wargaming and experimentation.”

Alan Roan, MD of Cervus.ai

Challenge

Incumbent decision making processes with defence are currently inefficient
Deliberations between experts are time-consuming, expensive, and risk being derailed by subjective viewpoints rather than based on fact
Organisations that are slow to action can miss key deadlines and risk serious negative outcomes

Solution

Simulations of different scenarios are parallelised for speed, with Hadean Orchestrate delivering the computational power
Invariant scaling across any on premise, cloud or edge environments
Simulations are realised on the front end using Cervus’ AI analytics engine
Optimum decisions are then derived from results

Outcome

Developing and testing innovative solutions to pressing strategic issues, capability gaps and operational optimisation
Injecting agility into the decision cycle, continuous testing of concepts, and the rapid development of capabilities and doctrine
Enabling effective outcomes to avoid technology shock, counter adversaries and reduce operational risk