{{About, the military communication protocol, the instant messaging protocol, SIMPLE (disambiguation){{!SIMPLE The Standard Interface for Multiple Platform Link Evaluation (SIMPLE) is a

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

communications protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics (computer science), sem ...

defined in

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

Standardization Agreement In NATO, a standardization agreement (STANAG, redundant acronym, redundantly: STANAG agreement) defines processes, procedures, terms, and conditions for common military or technical procedures or equipment between the member countries of the alli ...

STANAG 5602.

Purpose

SIMPLE defines a communications protocol to provide the means for geographically (national and international) separated Tactical Data Link (TDL) equipment ( C4ISR, C2 and non-C2 test facilities) to exchange environment data and TDL messages in order to conduct detailed TDL Interoperability (IO) testing. It is intended to provide specifications for a common standard to interconnect ground rigs of all types, such as

simulation A simulation is an imitative representation of a process or system that could exist in the real world. In this broad sense, simulation can often be used interchangeably with model. Sometimes a clear distinction between the two terms is made, in ...

and integration facilities. The SIMPLE allows transmission of M-Series and J-Series messages over IP-based protocols. Previously J-Series messages could be sent using the Link 16 protocol. However, Link 16 is a

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

protocol with a

frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as mechanical vibrations, audio ...

range that limits the exchange of information to within line-of-sight. Use of flexible bearer protocols, such as IP, makes it easier to exchange such J-Series data, particularly for simulations and integration. However, the SIMPLE is not limited to use for simulation and integration, and is finding applications beyond its original purpose wherever transmission of J-Series data is not amenable over radio protocols such as Link 16.

Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) protocols

The SIMPLE standard specifies the distributed transfer of a simulated scenario/synthetic environment using the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

Distributed Interactive Simulation Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) is an IEEE standard for conducting real-time platform-level wargaming across multiple host computers and is used worldwide, especially by military organizations but also by other agencies such as those inv ...

(DIS) protocols. DIS is a government/industry initiative to define an infrastructure for linking simulations of various types at multiple locations to create realistic, complex, virtual worlds for the simulation of highly

interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...

activities. A new protocol data unit (PDU) definition, the DIS PDU was added to the baseline protocol to support the exchange of DIS PDUs for simulated entities. The content of the SIMPLE DIS PDU packet is related to the DIS PDUs defined in the IEEE 1278.1 standard. As such, most Transmitter and Signal PDU fields require no translation.

Structure of the SIMPLE protocol

The SIMPLE standard consists of several elements. These are: * the communications bearer (e.g. telephone lines, digital WANs) * the

encryption In Cryptography law, cryptography, encryption (more specifically, Code, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the inf ...

methods to be used to protect the secure information transmitted between sites * the protocols/data formats for the data transfer process * additional aspects such as time co-ordination SIMPLE is an

application layer An application layer is an abstraction layer that specifies the shared communication protocols and interface methods used by hosts in a communications network. An ''application layer'' abstraction is specified in both the Internet Protocol Su ...

protocol that is designed to be independent of the

transport layer In computer networking, the transport layer is a conceptual division of methods in the layered architecture of protocols in the network stack in the Internet protocol suite and the OSI model. The protocols of this layer provide end-to-end c ...

. It can run using the following transport layer protocols: * UDP

broadcast Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

* UDP multicast * TCP * Serial

TDL message exchange

In SIMPLE, the method for exchanging TDL messages is to take the host generated message traffic from the MIDS/ JTIDS terminal interface and repackage it for transmission across the SIMPLE network. The receiving SIMPLE node extracts the TDL message traffic from the received packet and presents it to the host interface as if it had been received from a MIDS/JTIDS terminal.

Addressing

The addressing supports specific nodes, groups, and broadcast to all. These address forms are independent of the transport, which may have similar concepts (Serial and TCP point-to-point, UDP multicast and broadcast). Any SIMPLE addressing needs to go over any physical transport layer (although that may be open to interpretation).

History

The development of SIMPLE resulted from the requirement in February 1996 of the Ad Hoc Working Group (AHWG) on NATO Common Interoperability Standards (NCIS) Testing for a single interface standard to support the interconnection of NATO resources.

References

NATO STANAG 5602: Edition 3

SISO J to SIMPLE Translation Advice and Lexicon for Enabling Simulations (SIMPLE TALES), Joe Sorroche, ASRC Communications, Ltd.
Military communications Military simulation Application layer protocols