Type of document: Contract Notice
Country: United Kingdom
MOD Request For Information
GB-Swindon: Single Synthetic Environment – RFI
1. Contract Title
Title attributed to the request by the Contracting Authority: GB-Swindon: Single Synthetic Environment – RFI
2. Contracting Authority:
Ministry of Defence, C&C, C&C
Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Swindon, SN6 8LA, United Kingdom
Tel. +44 7584449184, Email: Andrew.hall453@mod.gov.uk, URL: www.contracts.mod.uk
Attn: Andrew Hall
3. Object of the Request for Information:
Weblink to where further documentation can be obtained: www.contracts.mod.uk
Short description of requirement: Platform interconnectivity software development services. The modern world has become increasingly more interconnected and data-driven and will only become more complex. Consequently, this complexity is challenging for decision-makers to understand, visualise and respond quickly, making informed decisions at a pace. Emerging development in critical technologies are reaching the point where they can be brought together to build a ‘digital twin’ of the real world with equal complexity, as a medium to harness the challenge, visualise the hidden and transform decision making support.
In early 2019 The MOD engaged in a project to deliver a Single Synthetic Environment Technology Demonstrator (SSE TD) a project to build a prototype of just such a digital model, one of the first of its kind. At the end of this two-year project, the MOD will be better placed to understand the relative benefits of such an approach and will have built up a library of assets and models during the process.
CPV codes :
72212211 – Platform interconnectivity software development services.
Time-limit: 17/08/2020 23:59 Information Requested: The modern world has become increasingly more interconnected and data-driven and will only become more complex. Consequently, this complexity is challenging for decision-makers to understand, visualise and respond quickly, making informed decisions at a pace. Emerging development in critical technologies are reaching the point where they can be brought together to build a ‘digital twin’ of the real world with equal complexity, as a medium to harness the challenge, visualise the hidden and transform decision making support.
In early 2019 The MOD engaged in a project to deliver a Single Synthetic Environment Technology Demonstrator (SSE TD) a project to build a prototype of just such a digital model, one of the first of its kind. At the end of this two-year project, the MOD will be better placed to understand the relative benefits of such an approach and will have built up a library of assets and models during the process.
Should the MOD may wish to continue further and build a long-term capability, to achieve this, they will run an open competition with industry for a platform that has the same or similar characteristics to that used within the SSE TD.
These requirements, therefore, have been focused around providing a platform with the core characteristics to exploit the Authority held IP within the models generated, but also offer a platform for broader Modelling and Simulation needs across multiple use cases and numerous verticals with the five domains.
The requirements separate into three distinct sections
1. Physical environment – (Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS))
The solution should have a comprehensive versioning suite with detailed versioning at component and platform level, and support updates and rollbacks alike. The System Services will have an authenticated and auditable release portal through which industry SI’s can obtain version info. The System Services will support APIs for automated upgrades and will also support A/B testing for upgrades/updates for all internal and third-party system services. The Platform must be deployable to stand-alone hardware, private cloud or public cloud, and on both Linux and x86_64 machines. The security features of the System Services will support Authentication using SSO via SAML, Authorisation controlling access to services, entities and assets within the System Service. Secure logging of all user interactions with all service interactions traceable. The System Services, including its tools and models, must be able to operate up to and above SECRET classifications. Data Security, encryption, access security and communication security will be mandatory at in the first instance, set against the highest industry standard.
2. Synthetic Environment Platform – Create an ability to offer a service which provides: (Platform as a Service (PaaS))
The Platform should maintain a versioned repository of models, where models can be added and deleted from the Platform dynamically. Simulations should be able to retrieve models (and dependencies) from this repository at execution time. The Platform should support dynamic selection of run mode giving Closed (supporting Faster Than Real-Time), Interactive Real-Time (RT) and Time Step (TS) modes. The Worker solution should be independent of the run Paradigm, and all Platform features should be available for all run modes.
Scenarios should be able to be run in any paradigm with the same data composed from a user-defined scenario generation pipeline. Multiple instances must be able to be initiated from a single scenario (Monte Carlo support), and scenario generation must be parameterisable and repeatable. The Platform should also support closed simulations at Fast as Possible execution of workers producing deterministic results, as well as real-time and time stepped modes.
The Platform will provide for headless mode execution facilitating the simulation to run scenarios based on situation changes, to alert the user to otherwise unforeseen risks and outcomes.
The Platform should facilitate a comprehensive range of worker features including; a managed worker execution environment, remote/client workers and a worker APIs.
The Platform must have a comprehensive suite of development tools and be scalable in both size and complexity. Model coupling is to be facilitated with a common model database and data model, tooling and integrate with industry standards such as DIS, HLA, CIGI and Defence’s DMaSC approach. There will be an orchestration layer to facilitate efficient parallel simulation runs, system health monitoring and automated scaling. Recording and playback of simulation runs must be supported, including live streaming of simulation state. The Platform must include a comprehensive analysis suite and data management suite and support a verification and validation framework.
In addition to complying with standards and requirements for emerging UK MOD and NATO Modelling & Simulation platforms, models must be able to:
• represent Economic and Political conditions and impacts.
• generate qualitative Measures of Effectiveness to support Campaign Effectiveness Analysis.
• operate without a strategic estimate or assumptions in place
• account for constraints imposed by the tactical domain
• ingest historical narrative, lessons and data to inform the prediction of effects and adversaries to inform Operational Military Strategic Effect (OSME )
• operate with limited information and under high degrees of uncertainty
• generate predictions to substitute for missing information
• Models and tools must comply with standards and requirements for emerging UK MOD and NATO Modelling & Simulation platforms
3. MilSim Synthetic Environment Generation (Software as a Service (SaaS))
The software should support scalable, comprehensive model tooling suites for Military simulation tooling, and model tooling. Both should include robust unit testing libraries, modelling APIs for Agent-Based Models (ABM), Network models and models from probabilistic modelling tooling. There must be robust model integration, development and coupling support with models for Critical National Infrastructure modelling and Civilian behavioural modelling to cover movement, integration with military entities, sentiment and social network activity. An analysis toolset should also facilitate statistical analysis and outcome analysis.
A wargaming interface should be a key feature, with the capability to provide support for multiple cells, each containing multiple members. The “Fog of war” effect will be simulated using data separation to depict a real to life experience for the operators and provide for white team support to interdict and steer the game differently to the simulation if required.
The Software will provide a data ingestion capability that can support open source with a library for tooling that performs common data hygiene tasks. In addition to the WebUI components, the UI will support geographic simulation playback with map display with layer appreciation, recording playback of previous simulations and statistics display.
The Authority will be looking for suppliers to provide details about which element(s) of the requirement they are able to contribute to. The Authority will then assess the responses and invite suppliers to an Industry Day and to participate in bilateral discussions.
