ATT 1 REBASE Final SOW ARA.pdf

Statement of Work

REBASE

Redefining the Basic Analytical and Simulation Environment

Basic Contract

1 Background and Purpose

1.1 Background

1.2 Challenge and Opportunity

2 Vision and Scope

2.1 Anticipated Period of Performance and Budget

2.2 Vision

2.3 Scope

2.4 Business Strategy

2.5 Coordination Strategy

2.6 Shared Infrastructure and Platforms Policy

2.7 Data Rights Strategy

2.8 Third-Party and Open Source Software Policy

3 Objectives

3.1 Accelerate Multi-Domain Operations MS&A

3.2 Evolve Foundational MS&A Frameworks and Tools

3.3 Deliver MS&A Capabilities at the Speed of Relevance

4 Security Requirements

4.1 Classification

4.2 Safeguarding of Unclassified Information

4.3 Safeguarding Export Controlled Information

4.4 Operations Security (OPSEC)

4.5 Cyber Security

4.6 The Use of Foreign Funds

5 References

5.1 Common Terms and Definitions

5.2 Common Abbreviations

1 BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

1.1 BACKGROUND

The Aerospace Vehicle Technology Assessment and Simulation (AVTAS) Branch in the Air Force Research

Laboratory (AFRL) currently develops, maintains, and distributes the Advanced Framework for

Simulation, Integration, and Modeling (AFSIM), a modular, object-oriented Multi-Domain Operations

(MDO) Modeling, Simulation, & Analysis (MS&A) framework. AFRL intends for AFSIM to support multi-domain, multi-resolution MS&A activities ranging from engineering to mission-level into campaign.

Beyond the framework itself, AFRL develops and maintains an extensive AFSIM-compatible toolset including applications to ease scenario and model creation, improve results visualization, and enhance operator-in/on-the-loop interactions.

AFSIM and its ecosystem of tools have evolved significantly over the past 15 years. AFSIM originally provided a flexible solution to study advanced technology concepts within the air domain at the mission level. AFRL has since expanded AFSIM’s capabilities to partially address all warfighting domains (air, land, sea, space, cyber) as well as spectrum of simulation needs from the engineering level to the campaign level. The AFSIM community, including government and industry users across the Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community (IC), has encouraged these investments by continuing to supply AFRL with new and challenging requirements. Meanwhile, growing interest in AFSIM has postured the framework to become a common tool in the DoD’s MS&A toolbox.

1.2 CHALLENGE AND OPPORTUNITY

The DoD’s aggressive pivot towards MDO requires a force that can achieve dominance in one warfighting domain or many, blending few capabilities or many, to achieve overwhelming freedom of action and superiority against U.S. adversaries, particularly near-peer competitors (Air Force Chief of

Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein – July 2019). Poised to deliver material solutions that realize this operational reality, the DoD Science and Technology (S&T) enterprise requires new model-based methods and tools to study both the problem and solution spaces associated with MDO. Likewise, MDO represents a total-force challenge that requires full reach-back into the U.S. defense innovation base.

While AFSIM has gradually improved its ability to represent concepts across warfighting domains, it requires an equally aggressive investment to become a truly formidable MDO tool in the hands of scientists, engineers, and analysts. Certainly, AFSIM’s open business model and flexible Information

Transfer Agreement (ITA) have motivated its ascent as a common tool. However, its “out-of-the-box” or

“boxset” capabilities have not yet reduced start-up costs associated with MDO analysis. Furthermore, while AFRL has advanced AFSIM’s commoditization and maturation, the framework has yet to reach its full potential as a stable platform supporting the rapid and evolutionary exchange of multi-domain concepts and solutions among its users.

While many government organizations use AFSIM or fund AFSIM-related work, this effort intends to address its mainstream development to address the MDO challenge.

2 VISION AND SCOPE

2.1 ANTICIPATED PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE AND BUDGET

The shared ceiling for the Redefining the Basic Analytical and Simulation Environment (REBASE) program will be $48 million over a four-year period of performance.

2.2 VISION

Under REBASE, AFRL intends to use AFSIM to advance the state of the art in DoD MS&A and respond to the evolving needs of the defense innovation base as it accelerates the research, discovery, development, and transition of novel multi-domain warfighting capabilities.

To promote this vision, AFRL has established three broad objectives:

Objective-1: Accelerate Multi-Domain Operations MS&A

Objective-2: Evolve Foundational MS&A Frameworks and Tools

Objective-3: Deliver MS&A Capabilities at the Speed of Relevance

For each objective depicted in Figure 1, AFRL has also planned several initiatives and elaborated focus areas to both refine scope and convey explicit priorities and needs.

Figure 1: REBASE Objectives

Together, these objectives and initiatives trace back to the challenges and opportunities enumerated in

Section 1.2. These initiatives generally respond to the need to expand multi-domain “boxset" capabilities, the need to address the full complexity of the multi-domain context, and the need to rapidly evolve software products through Agile principles and practices characteristic of a modern digital enterprise.

2.3 SCOPE

AFRL’s objectives, introduced in Section 2.2 and detailed through initiatives in Section 3, should culminate in a balanced product that can more flexibly iterate between analytical concerns from engineering to campaign levels.

For many decades, the military operations analysis and modeling communities have added a number of tools to the DoD “toolbox” to address specific questions that arise during technology development and acquisition. The familiar MS&A pyramid depicts five distinct levels of modeling resolution/detail appropriate to answer such questions. Table 1 characterizes each level through typical attributes and uses. Over time, modelers and analysts have had to learn to use and integrate an ensemble of simulation tools, each serving to answer a narrow set of questions within a narrow set of warfighting domains. Nothing inherent to system analysis at the various levels should lead to this segregation of scope. Rather, historical limitations in software languages, computer memory constraints, and processor speeds have encouraged these distinctions.

Table 1: Levels of Analysis

Level Engineering One-on-One Engagement Mission Campaign

Scope Single threat system vs.

subsystem components

Single threat system vs. single weapon system

Few threat systems vs. few weapon systems

Many threat systems vs. many weapon systems

All regional threat systems vs. joint service/coalition forces

Level of Resolution / Detail

Highly detailed;

Individual components, interactions, physics

Individual entities;

Detailed subsystems

Individual entities;

Moderately detailed subsystems

Many individual entities;

Some aggregated entities;

Detailed IADS

Highly aggregated entities

Time Span Microseconds to minutes

Seconds to minutes

Seconds to minutes

Minutes to hours Days to weeks

Typical Metrics

Prob. of kill;

Vulnerable area

Miss distance;

Prob. of kill;

Acquisition range

Loss exchange ratio;

Survival/loss rate;

Missile performance

Survival/loss rate;

Prob. of engagement;

Missile shots/kills

Expeditionary forces flow;

Target drawdown;

Target kills;

Campaign cost

Typical Uses

Design trades;

Performance trades;

Requirements development;

Test;

Tech Investment

Analysis of Alternatives (AoAs);

Design trades;

Performance trades;

Requirements development;

Tactics evaluation;

Test;

Tech Investment

AoAs;

Design trades;

Performance trades;

Requirements development;

Tactics evaluation;

Test;

Tech Investment

AoAs;

Requirements development;

Concept of Operations

(CONOPS);

Operational Concepts;

Test;

AoAs;

Force structure design;

Requirements development;

War gaming;

Sustainment Mobility & logistics;

Military worth/utility;

CONOPS;

While AFSIM should not (cannot) subsume all of these specialized capabilities under the umbrella of a single multi-domain framework, it should help end users more flexibly and efficiently iterate between analytical concerns and move to a more modern way of doing analysis. With easing of constraints on software design and computing power, tools for analysis focus less on the size or scale of a system and more on the questions at hand for a given stage of system development. The types of questions designers and analysts need to answer fall into three broad categories: performance analysis, effectiveness analysis, and military utility analysis (Table 2). AFSIM requires balanced investment where it can well serve its “home ground” for effectiveness analysis while reducing time and cost for carrying analytical investigations to the performance and military utility levels.

Table 2: Natural Levels of Analysis

Level of Analysis Performance Effectiveness Military Utility

Definition Comparative measure of the level of operation or function of a material, sub-system, system, or architecture

Comparative measure of performance of a system in an operational environment

Comparative measure of the effectiveness of a system to achieve large-scale objectives

Environment/Scope Based on mathematical distributions (e.g., uniform, normal, etc.)

Based on discrete values

(e.g., Defense Planning

Guidance (DPG) scenarios)

Full scope of operations of a system (i.e., operation, maintenance, logistics, and sometimes even development and disposal)

Typical Metrics Ratios or probabilities (e.g., miles per gallon, probability of detection, probability of kill given fragments on a 3D target)

Raw numbers of macro-events (e.g., detections, kills, gallons of fuel consumed)

Raw numbers of macro-events (e.g., forward line of troops movement, kills, tons of cargo moved, gallons of fuel consumed)

Typical Uses System design trades;

Requirements development;

Test; Tech investment;

Compare and contrast similar systems

CONOPS development;

Requirements development;

Tactics evaluation; Test;

Tech investment; Compare and contrast design concepts

Means for determining mission prioritization;

Requirements development;

War gaming; CONOPS development; Tech investment; compare and contrast concept impact on final outcome

2.4 BUSINESS STRATEGY

Under REBASE, AFRL intends to prototype an agile governance and competitive acquisition approach that quickly responds to evolving multi-domain requirements. This approach should also help catalyze

AFSIM’s growing user community into a robust supply chain for novel model-based products and tools.

To describe the enterprise under REBASE, AFRL will refer to the following stakeholder roles:

1. The AFSIM Program/Product Management Team (PMT): Government stewards, accountable to

AFSIM’s program sponsors, who ultimately define AFSIM’s business and technical strategy and exercise governance authority over all community-driven aspects of the product

2. Framework Developers: Principal members of the AFSIM community advancing the core AFSIM framework and applications that support both end users and other capability providers

3. Capability Providers: Members of the AFSIM community that build upon or extend the core

AFSIM framework to provide value to end users in the form of new models, scenarios, plugins, applications, and associated support products

4. End Users: Members of the AFSIM community (scientists, engineers, and analysts) who ultimately use AFSIM to discover, develop, and transition novel multi-domain warfighting capabilities

Each role is pivotal to the successful outcome of each objective and the continuous and incremental delivery of value to end users throughout the period of performance.

2.4.1 Acquisition Approach

AFRL’s acquisition approach will favor shorter, well-scoped task orders coinciding with a continuous

AFSIM release cycle. AFRL intends to maximize opportunity for multiple Capability Providers and

Framework Developers to contribute to the product. Figure 2: Acquisition Approach depicts this approach in a notional form (number, frequency, scope, and duration of task orders subject to change).

Figure 2: Acquisition Approach

The AFSIM PMT will assume a Product Owner role by continuously managing, prioritizing, and refining both government and end-user needs in a Product Backlog. Upon verifying that these needs fall within the scope of REBASE, the AFSIM PMT will plan to address these needs across a series of task order solicitations. AFRL has identified two themes, traceable to one or more REBASE objectives, to help inform the scope of each series of task orders.

As illustrated in Figure 3, these themes follow a simple metaphor: Expansion requires a foundation.

Figure 3: Expansion Metaphor

2.4.1.1. Expansion Task Order Series

AFRL intends to solicit a series of task orders that address gaps in AFSIM’s “boxset” capabilities delivered to end users in the form of AFSIM-compatible models, scenarios, and plugins. AFRL anticipates that a majority of these task orders will fall under the scope of Objective-1 and will need to tap into a broad pool of technical and operational expertise from across the AFSIM community. AFRL anticipates that this series may introduce both single and multiple-award opportunities.

2.4.1.2. Foundation Task Order Series

AFRL’s ability to broadly solicit and acquire new AFSIM-compatible models, scenarios, and plugins depends upon a stable architecture and technical foundation. To provide that foundation, AFRL intends to solicit a series of task orders that advance the capabilities of the core framework for a growing pool of potential contributors. This series will also establish enduring processes and tooling necessary to accelerate the delivery of new features and capabilities developed across multiple task orders. AFRL anticipates that a majority of these task orders will fall under the scope of Objective-2 and Objective-3 and predominantly favor single-award opportunities fulfilling critical orchestration and integration roles.

2.5 COORDINATION STRATEGY

AFRL’s business strategy (Section 2.4) requires an integrated, “whole-team” approach that realizes a shared enterprise among multiple parties – the AFSIM PMT, Capability Providers, Framework

Developers, and End Users. While AFRL can assume a more active role as Product Owner, it cannot assume technical coordination and integration responsibilities. For this reason, AFRL will identify several principal technical roles that will fall within the scope of the Foundation Task Order Series. These roles may include, but are not limited to, a Project Manager, Principal Architect, Release Engineer, and

Operations Lead. Likewise, AFRL will require offerors across both task order series to identify essential team-level roles such as Team Leads and Solution Architects that can plug into a larger “team-of-teams" coordination framework. Offerors may define additional roles and should dynamically adjust their team composition and structure to meet unique task order requirements.

This “whole-team” approach embodied in a “team-of-teams" organizational pattern will require shared objectives. For this reason, AFRL intends to make one initiative under Objective-3 common to all task order series: Promote Agility and Discipline at Scale (Section 3.3.3.1). Each task order series will introduce unique roles and requirements traceable to this initiative. For instance, offerors may collaborate on common deliverables that establish normative guidelines for “shared development” among program stakeholders.

2.6 SHARED INFRASTRUCTURE AND PLATFORMS POLICY

AFRL is not only interested in building new AFSIM capabilities, it is also interested in building the enterprise required to evolve AFSIM for the future. That is, AFRL views investment in the Software

Factory equal in value to the software that it produces. Consequently, AFRL does not believe that the general processes and tooling required to produce or evolve AFSIM over its lifecycle should become unique to any particular vendor.

Likewise, a business strategy that tries to establish a shared enterprise among multiple parties requires a “shared-development” approach that emerges through transparency, open communication, and trust.

Specific scaled Agile and DevSecOps practices promoted under this effort assume the availability of a development platform that promotes “shared development” through a modern technology stack. While in the past, AFRL could not reliably furnish these capabilities, recent enterprise-level investments and initiatives have drastically changed this calculus.

Offerors should plan to maximize the use of government-managed infrastructure for collaboration on

REBASE. At the start of REBASE, AFRL intends to promote the use of the Defense Intelligence

Information Enterprise (DI2E) provided technology stack (DevTools) as a shared development platform for most objectives (https://www.di2e.net). While AFRL believes that DI2E DevTools provides a sufficient set of capabilities to pursue initial objectives, it also plans to pursue emerging capabilities from the DoD

DevSecOps Initiative such as Cloud One/Platform One as well as other capabilities for classified collaboration. Some of these pursuits may fall under the scope of Objective-3.

AFRL recognizes several risks to this strategy, particularly in the case where multiple contractor teams are conducting parallel development activities on a shared platform for a common product. To mitigate these risks, AFRL desires to collaborate with offerors who can fully embody principle technical roles

(Section 2.5) such as those established under the Foundation Task Order Series. AFRL plans to vest these roles with an appropriate vantage point and technical authority to tackle challenges related to scale and complexity.

2.7 DATA RIGHTS STRATEGY

Pursuant to its business strategy, AFRL intends to acquire “Unlimited Rights,” as that term is defined under 48 C.F.R. § 252.227-7013(a)(16) and 48 C.F.R. § 252.227-7014(a)(16), to any software, documentation, and tooling developed under this effort. Software and documentation includes, but is not limited to source code, data, documents, graphics, plans, schedules, schemas, metadata, architecture designs, training/support data, and the like; and all new tooling, infrastructure as code, script configuration management, or any other end-items necessary for the community-wide development, maturation, and unimpeded distribution of AFSIM under the liberal terms and conditions of the AFSIM ITA.

2.8 THIRD-PARTY AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE POLICY

To the extent that a contractor plans to incorporate any software not provided or produced in the performance of this effort (i.e., third-party software), AFRL will first encourage the use of appropriate software in the public domain, and free and open source software that qualifies under the Open Source

Definition promulgated by the Open Source Initiative. If software delivered to AFRL incorporates software that is subject to an open source license that provides implementation guidance, then contractors must abide by that guidance. Where an open source license does not provide implementation guidance, contractors must attach or include the terms of the license within the work itself, such as in code comments at the beginning of a file, or in a LICENSE file within a software repository.

In all cases, a contractor must first disclose to AFRL and seek approval in writing before incorporating third-party software subject to a license. The Government will weigh the perceived benefits of incorporating the third-party software against the cost of future supportability, security, and accessibility in the context of the AFSIM ITA. If AFRL grants such written permission, then the contractor’s rights to use that software must promptly transfer to the Government.

https://www.di2e.net/

3 OBJECTIVES

3.1 THE CONTRACTOR SHALL ACCELERATE MULTI-DOMAIN OPERATIONS MS&A

Objective-1 directly supports the vision of this effort by developing the “boxset" capabilities need to reduce start-up costs associated with MDO MS&A.

Section 3.1.1 describes AFRL’s motivation and purpose for defining this objective, Section 3.1.2 describes its specific scope of focus, while Section 3.1.3 enumerates five key initiatives within that scope.

3.1.1 Purpose

AFRL intends for AFSIM to support comprehensive MDO MS&A for the rapid study of emerging military technology concepts. Rich multi-domain representations help technologists, engineers, and analysts better assess military utility, evaluate architectural tradeoffs, and make informed engineering decisions.

Few organizations maintain a “deep bench” of subject matter experts across disciplines who can develop these representations from scratch. For smaller organizations or shorter studies, this is often a non-starter. Developing, verifying, and (depending on the use) validating models and scenarios demands time, cost, talent, and especially, data. Ultimately, project teams lose precious schedule time while training personnel on tools, wrangling data sets, and tuning models for study purposes. AFRL recognizes these challenges and intends to lower these barriers by expanding AFSIM’s “boxset” MDO capabilities.

Characteristics of an ideal MDO baseline include multi-resolution model and scenario representations at various degrees of fidelity, pedigreed data with well-documented traceability, support for mixed live, virtual, and constructive simulation, and a well-curated library of red and blue systems. When provided such a research accelerant, end users can more efficiently apply their specific domain expertise to the essential analytical questions.

3.1.2 Scope

AFRL intends to significantly expand and improve AFSIM’s “out-of-the-box" model, scenario, and capability set. Five Government-identified initiatives (Table 3) describe the scope of this investment.

Table 3: Objective-1 Scope

"Boxset” Capabilities Specific Concern REBASE Initiative

Air Operations Does AFSIM provide a mature set of readily configurable air assets and representative tactics or behaviors?

Enhance Air Combat Operations Capabilities

Space Operations Does AFSIM provide a mature set of space operations models and behaviors as required by the community?

Enhance Space Operations Capabilities

Cyber/EW Operations Does AFSIM provide a mature set of cyber/ electronic warfare (EW) operations representations as well as the necessary tools to visualize and understand their effectiveness?

Enhance Cyber and EW Operations Capabilities

Pedigreed Threats Does AFSIM deliver pedigreed threat models and scenarios developed in close collaboration with the IC?

Expand Threat Representations

Joint Operations Does AFSIM have a sufficient and balanced representation for maritime and land-based concepts?

Expand Joint Operations Capabilities

3.1.3 Initiatives

3.1.3.1. The Contractor shall Enhance Air Combat Operations Capabilities

Beginning with its legacy heritage and continued through Air Force sponsorship, AFSIM has incrementally improved its representation of air assets and their agency through combat behaviors and tactics.

Investments to date have helped reduce the time required to develop new aircraft and missile models sensitive to physics-based effects (e.g., aerodynamics, aircraft handling characteristics, propulsion), imbue those models with script-based perception and cognition, and understand their performance through visualization and analysis tools. Continued expansion and maturation of these investments will ensure that AFSIM can meaningfully contribute to the development of next-generation air dominance capabilities. This initiative focuses on building up AFSIM’s catalog of air asset models, expanding its library of modular air combat behaviors and tactics, and improving the methods and tools by which end users can generate, compose, and explore those behaviors.

Tasks under this initiative may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

Statement of Work (SOW).

3.1.3.2. The Contractor shall Enhance Space Operations Capabilities

Spaceborne capabilities have become an integral part of modern terrestrial warfare. As a result, mission and campaign-level simulation requires increasingly more detail in the depiction of space operations. The ubiquity of space effects on all warfighting domains drives a real need for “boxset” space capabilities to accommodate multiple levels of fidelity and degrees of configurability. While some end users need authoritative, “plug-n-play” model assets to build a plausible space context, others require more flexibility to explore system-of-systems tradespaces characterized by the performance of these spaceborne assets. Over the past several years, AFRL has invested significantly in improving AFSIM’s representation of the space domain. Capabilities range from space-weather modeling, to common propagator models, to visual tools that aid in the rapid creation of satellite constellations. This initiative intends to expand AFSIM’s space operations capabilities in the form of models and supporting tools while balancing needs across the user community.

Tasks under this initiative may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded SOW.

3.1.3.3. The Contractor shall Enhance Cyber and EW Operations Capabilities

Success in modern warfare depends upon the control and flow of information, the ability to disrupt or influence an adversary’s decision-making process, and the capacity to defend against the same. In order to maintain strategic advantage, the DoD continues to emphasize the criticality of information operations characterized by dominance of the entire electromagnetic spectrum and vital communications, command, and control networks and systems (JP 3-51). The capacity of U.S. adversaries to sense or affect the electromagnetic spectrum and vital defense systems presents a particular challenge for scientists, engineers, and analysts developing future weapon systems. Likewise, new materiel solutions (including both red and blue systems) often present new attack surfaces, exploited exclusively through the electromagnetic/information environment. AFSIM has traditionally represented the aggregate mission-level effects of electromagnetic and information operations on modeled systems and networks. While this level of fidelity has satisfied basic operational effectiveness studies, it strains to support studies that require more spatially and temporally accurate detail about the electromagnetic/information environment and interactions therein. This initiative intends to improve the capacity of “boxset” models to participate in these contested environments while providing end users with a powerful set of analytical tools to master its effects.

Tasks under this initiative may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded SOW.

3.1.3.4. The Contractor shall Expand Threat Representations

The DoD has steadily increased its reliance on MS&A to make significant S&T investment and acquisition decisions. With limited resources and significant opportunity cost at stake, decision makers have likewise raised the bar for technologists and analysts to defend the credibility of their analyses. A successful defense generally begins with the use of traceable, pedigreed, validated, or otherwise authoritative, intelligence-derived models and scenarios. The AFSIM “boxset” should provide both end users and decision makers alike with the evidence necessary to substantiate critical claims and arguments expressed through simulation. Ideally, system owners and intelligence agencies would provide end users with comprehensive data on both foreign and friendly system-of-systems representations. Unfortunately, the DoD has yet to establish an accessible model clearinghouse inclusive of all warfighting domains and concerns. Where data exists, end users must often make informed inferences or “port” existing models between frameworks and simulation environments. These translation steps introduce new sources of error and analytical doubt. To improve analytical credibility, AFRL intends to focus on the continuous and incremental expansion of authoritative, intelligence-derived threat representations and scenarios in

AFSIM. These threat representations should come from supported IC model product lines, ensuring that the IC remain the recognized source for authoritative, intelligence-derived models in AFSIM. Model production should include commensurate investment in the tooling and processes necessary to accelerate threat modeling, integration, and verification in AFSIM.

Under this initiative, the following focus areas prioritize investments that will provide authoritative threat representations in the AFSIM “boxset” across a range of fidelities and domains and improved tooling to support threat modeling and verification.

3.1.3.4.1 Focus Area: Incorporate Pedigreed Threat Models

Out of the box, AFSIM should provide a comprehensive library of threat models covering a range of fidelities for a broad spectrum of analytical use cases. While the IC has produced an extensive catalog of pedigreed, authoritative, intelligence-derived threat models under the Threat Modeling and Analysis

Program (TMAP), AFSIM has only incorporated a subset of this catalog. This focus area intends to expand the breadth of high-fidelity TMAP models available through AFSIM and advance the development of lower-fidelity surrogate models for high-performance applications. Critical to this endeavor, this initiative will also establish the tooling necessary to accelerate the modeling, integration, and verification of multi-resolution threat models in AFSIM.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.1.3.4.2 Focus Area: Incorporate Pedigreed Threat Scenarios

Meaningful evaluation of military utility requires an assessment of how technology concepts will perform against specific adversary systems and tactics. While the DPG scenarios, produced by the Office of the

Secretary of Defense, provide an official government assessment of an adversary’s capabilities and posture, these scenarios do not provide simulation-ready models. End users must still translate these paper-based descriptions into executable forms using a simulation framework of choice. The capability to rapidly instantiate and affordably maintain DPG scenarios as part of the AFSIM “boxset” will significantly improve end-user access to authoritative scenarios and works traceable to a relevant threat picture.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.1.3.5. The Contractor Shall Expand Joint Operations Capabilities

AFRL intends for AFSIM to become a commodity tool useful across the entire defense MS&A community.

Toward this end, the AFSIM user community has grown significantly over the past seven years and now includes representation across all military services and intelligence production centers. While AFRL does not intend to fashion AFSIM as a replacement for service and domain-specific models, it does intend to improve its representation of joint operations capabilities. More specifically, a meaningful pivot towards all-domain analysis requires balanced attention to the maritime and land operational domains.

Historically underrepresented in AFSIM “boxset” scenarios and models, investments in these domains can help “unlock” new capabilities while reimagining the future of U.S. combat operations.

Under this initiative, the following focus areas prioritize investments in the expansion of joint capability representations with the goal of posturing the framework to address the needs of the whole AFSIM user community.

3.1.3.5.1 Focus Area: Expand Maritime Operations Capabilities

Maritime forces operate on (surface), under (subsurface), or above the sea and/or above and on the land in support of amphibious operations, port security, infrastructure protection, strike, integrated air and missile defense, and other operations across the range of military operations (JP 3-32). Except for where maritime and air operations domains intersect, AFSIM provides only basic surface and subsurface models. This focus area outlines a multi-layered approach that prioritizes capability expansion within the maritime domain to include appropriate visualization while pursuing strategic U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine

Corps (USMC) community interests.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.1.3.5.2 Focus Area: Expand Land Operations Capabilities

U.S. Army, USMC, and U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) forces conduct joint land operations through simultaneous offensive, defensive, and stability operations. Land operations doctrine recognizes the need to maneuver and coordinate fires across multiple dimensions of the battlespace, yet

AFSIM provides only rudimentary modeling capability to represent the intersection of those concerns.

This focus area outlines a multi-layered approach that prioritizes capability expansion within the land operations domain with appropriate visualization to pursue strategic U.S. Army, USMC, and USSOCOM community interests.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2 THE CONTRACTOR SHALL EVOLVE FOUNDATIONAL MS&A FRAMEWORKS AND TOOLS

Objective-2 directly supports the acceleration of MDO MS&A by anticipating and fulfilling the foundational tooling and framework needs for Objective-1.

Section 3.2.1 describes AFRL’s motivation and purpose for defining this objective, Section 3.2.2 describes its specific scope of focus, while Section 3.2.3 enumerates five key initiatives within that scope.

3.2.1 Purpose

AFSIM and its ecosystem of tools must continue to adapt to new drivers and use cases traceable to the unique challenges of studying novel warfighting concepts in a multi-domain context. Propelled by the commoditization of computing and the practical application of artificial intelligence in the commercial sector, warfare is again at the cusp of change. Operations and systems will rapidly evolve in both structural and behavioral dimensions of complexity while levying new requirements against analytical tools to help navigate these decision spaces.

AFRL has uniquely positioned AFSIM to respond to these changing demand signals. Harkening back to its heritage in the Analytic Framework for Network Enabled Systems (AFNES) over a decade ago, AFSIM has provided its users with a malleable medium by which to express new operational and system concepts.

While the framework has matured significantly over the years, its component and plugin-based architecture, integrated and extensible suite of analyst tools, and modern development environment represent an investment in and testament to its future evolvability.

AFRL must address the challenge of quickly responding to these change drivers while also providing a stable and suitable platform for its stakeholders. As end users build new capabilities upon this platform in the form of AFSIM-compatible models, scenarios, and plugins, there is an assumption that user-generated investments can readily travel alongside the AFSIM lifecycle. Likewise, AFRL recognizes that an expanding set of multi-domain capabilities can quickly overwhelm the capacity of any one user or developer to understand, use, or maintain.

3.2.2 Scope

AFRL intends to promote five essential qualities (Table 4) to guide the evolution of AFSIM as a foundational tool for MDO MS&A. Under this effort, offerors will realize five Government-identified initiatives to drive these qualities into the current design and implementation of AFSIM as well as the architecture for the next major version.

Table 4: Objective-2 Scope

Quality Specific Concern REBASE Initiative

Suitability Does AFSIM provide a complete set of capabilities for multi-domain MS&A with attention to the correctness and verification of its intermediate and final outputs?

Enrich Multi-Domain Foundations

Compatibility Can AFSIM coexist in the modern digital environment characterized by many specialized engineering and analysis tools interoperating, exchanging, and contributing to a single, authoritative source of truth?

Join the Digital Ecosystem

Usability Does AFSIM effectively achieve the goals of its diverse user base while meeting expectations for overall user experience characterized by attributes like learnability, efficiency, and even aesthetics satisfaction?

Improve the User Experience

Flexibility Can AFSIM model concepts at multiple levels of spatial and temporal resolution as well as support analyses that span multiple levels of classification?

Promote Flexibility in Use

Performance Can we characterize typical AFSIM workloads in terms of time behavior and resource utilization? Can AFSIM support cloud-native deployment and patterns required for deep-learning applications of MS&A?

Leverage Computation at Scale

3.2.3 Initiatives

3.2.3.1. The Contractor shall Enrich Multi-Domain Foundations

MDO MS&A presents an opportunity to expand beyond traditional platform-centric thinking. Under traditional modeling paradigms, the platform is the fundamental building block of a simulation and specifies both the structural and behavioral aspects of any simulated actor. However, much of the complexity of MDO manifests in the behaviors, interactions, timing, and information flows between actors (platforms) across domains in an integrated battlespace. This initiative revisits core AFSIM framework decisions in light of multi-domain requirements with the intent of enhancing, extending, and rearchitecting (where necessary) to provide a complete set of capabilities for multi-domain MS&A.

Under this initiative, the following focus areas prioritize investments that will improve the suitability and long-term viability of AFSIM for future multi-domain technology representations and assessments.

3.2.3.1.1 Focus Area: Enhance Multi-Domain Perception and Battlespace Awareness

Multi-domain perception and battlespace awareness is a key component of any global integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance solution as the joint force attempts to connect any sensor to any shooter, anywhere. The breadth of concern includes collection across the entire electromagnetic spectrum (signals, imagery, and measurement) as well as processing, exploitation, analysis, estimation, production, and dissemination into the force’s operating picture.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2.3.1.2 Focus Area: Enhance Multi-Domain Command, Control, and Communications

Multi-domain command and control (C2) and decision superiority is a critical factor in future peer-competitor warfare as militaries fully enter the information age. Future conflicts will likely be global in scope, and complex in nature. To understand that scope and complexity, and to advance the concept of joint all domain C2, AFSIM representations of C2 systems and the communication architectures and pathways that enable C2 must evolve.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2.3.1.3 Focus Area: Enhance Multi-Domain Maneuver, Fires, and Effects

The ability to maneuver and deliver timely effects across all domains is critical to success in the multi-domain battlespace. The convergence and sequencing of effects in both time and space can realize physical, virtual, and even cognitive advantages that commanders can exploit to achieve overwhelming mass and operational advantage. On the other hand, studies of survivability and effectiveness in contested and denied environments must assume that the adversary will attempt to do the same. Given the importance of maneuver, fires, and combined effects in the emerging doctrine of multi-domain operations, AFSIM must continue to make strides to represent the future physical and virtual battlespace.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2.3.1.4 Focus Area: Support Complex Environmental Operating Conditions

Comprehensive representation of environmental operating conditions across all domains is essential for accurate multi-domain MS&A. Current AFSIM environmental models cover the air, space, and land domains and are limited in scope. Expanding AFSIM’s environmental modeling to cover all domains and improving existing environmental models is a key activity in providing complete multi-domain MS&A.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2.3.1.5 Focus Area: Support Limited Campaign and Theater-Level Concepts

The multi-domain operational context challenges assumptions that have traditionally limited the scope and complexity of mission-level analysis. Most mission-level analyses limit the scope of both time and space to a single mission or set of engagement vignettes and effectively ignore much of the theater context such as force structure, capabilities, strategy, and sustainment. Since many multi-domain measures of effectiveness consider cumulative effects over time, a limited theater-level perspective is necessary to reason about both linear and nonlinear movement of force and fire, multiple competing objectives governing resource allocation and prioritization, and strategic measures like force survivability and attrition. While the intent of this initiative is not to transform AFSIM into a campaign-level simulation framework, AFSIM does need to adopt some “campaign-lite” modeling capabilities that can faithfully represent multi-domain effects and their sensitivity to the broader theater context.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2.3.2. The Contractor shall Join the Digital Ecosystem

Digital Engineering is a DoD initiative that intends to refashion the DoD culture and workforce and transform the state of engineering and acquisition through innovative model-based tools and approaches. Consequently, the long-term viability of AFSIM depends upon its ability to fit within a growing ecosystem of specialized engineering and analysis tools. Within this ecosystem, AFSIM would become both a provider and consumer of digital information. To become a “digital native”, AFSIM must provide stable interfaces to support its use alongside a growing suite of community-adopted tools.

AFSIM must also provide capabilities to source and use external models or leverage specialized digital services from other providers. These investments will ultimately promote AFSIM as a more useful capability in joint DoD research, experimentation, engineering, and acquisition.

Under this initiative, the following focus areas prioritize investments that will promote “out-of-the-box" compatibility trusted by the community as seamless, reliable, and performant.

3.2.3.2.1 Focus Area: Promote Simulation Interoperability

AFSIM alone cannot address the ever-expanding wish list for comprehensive MDO MS&A. End users require an ensemble of tools tuned and orchestrated toward a common purpose. Conformance to open, community-maintained standards improve the compatibility, interoperability, reuse, and cost-effectiveness of collective tool investments while providing end users with a plethora of options to tackle complex problems.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2.3.2.2 Focus Area: Promote Data Interoperability and Model Interchange

The seamless model-driven development approaches described in the DoD’s Digital Engineering strategy assume tool developers have agreed upon how to map between domain-specific model formalisms.

Where models and data are the currency of exchange in the new digital ecosystem, metamodels describe its architecture. Without an established metamodel and ability to perform model transformations, end users will continue to encounter friction when attempting to use AFSIM alongside other MS&A tools.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2.3.2.3 Focus Area: Embrace Emerging Open System Architecture Standards

As a widely accessible and featureful platform to support technology maturation, users desire to extend an AFSIM-initiated digital thread through the entire systems engineering lifecycle. For instance, many organizations have incorporated AFSIM into their simulation testbeds and integration labs. These organizations successfully carry their AFSIM model investments from conceptual exploration to software-in-the-loop testing, to test planning, to virtual/live testing, and back to concept refinement. While this round-trip and model-based approach has proven effective to mature basic and applied research concepts, AFSIM does not currently provide these capabilities to all users “out of the box.” Organizations must fund and develop the necessary plugins and “glueware” to make this concept a reality. By embracing emerging open system architecture standards, AFSIM can better support this critical use case.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2.3.3. The Contractor shall Improve the User Experience

The AFSIM user community includes a wide range of domain-specific experience, competency, and skill often characterized using the simplified dichotomy of “analyst” or “developer.” Among “analysts”, this population includes users who desire complete GUI-driven scenario configuration tools to users who desire a comprehensive understanding of the simulated environment. Among “developers”, the population includes users who work within the confines of standard application programming interfaces to code contributors who try to enhance all aspects of the framework. Regardless of “home-ground” perspective, all AFSIM users require tools to grapple with the exponential growth in complexity introduced with multi-domain system-of-systems concepts and interrelated effects chains.

Under this initiative, the following focus areas prioritize investments that will improve the overall user experience and usability of the AFSIM framework and its accompanying tools.

3.2.3.3.1 Focus Area: Improve the Analyst Experience

Analysts invest significant time and resources in the creation of system, behavioral, and scenario representations reflecting capabilities specific to a place and time, with the end goal of answering specific stakeholder questions. Improving the analyst experience includes reducing the time and resources needed to instantiate these representations, reducing the time required to answer the questions at hand, and improving the persistence of analyst investments in models, plans, tools, and familiarization/training from study to study.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2.3.3.2 Focus Area: Improve the Developer Experience

To developers, frameworks like AFSIM represent a substantial investment in reuse and potential cost avoidance. When carefully designed and correctly implemented, frameworks can support rapid delivery of high-quality, value-added features without the burden of complex architectural decisions and tradeoffs. Developers eagerly adopt frameworks that anticipate their use cases and promote productivity and satisfaction. Improvements in developer experience not only advance the goals of the community, but also those of core developers and contributors.

Tasks under this focus area may include, but are not limited to, those enumerated in the expanded

SOW.

3.2.3.4. The Contractor shall Promote Flexibility in Use

As a framework, AFSIM provides inherent flexibility for end users to describe an operational scenario of interest and study the mission-level effects of new warfighting concepts virtually and constructively. As the S&T landscape changes rapidly, flexibility also ensures that scientists, engineers, and analysts can continue to lean on familiar tools to solve new challenges. AFSIM’s current flexibility largely follows from its generic component-based architecture, the principal investment over the lifecycle of AFSIM 2.x.

However, emerging multi-domain requirements demand additional dimensions of flexibility to include support for modeling and analysis at multiple levels of resolution and classification.

Under this initiative, the following focus areas prioritize investments that will improve the overall flexibility of the AFSIM framework to model concepts at multiple levels of spatial and temporal resolution as well as support analyses that span multiple levels of classification.

3.2.3.4.1 Focus Area: Support Modeling and Analysis at Multiple Resolutions

AFSIM models often represent a significant investment in the capture of complex domain knowledge in executable, shareable, and reusable forms. When designed appropriately, many users can incorporate these models in their simulations and studies while instantly realizing the benefits of that investment.

Unfortunately, the strategic reuse of models across different usage contexts is rarely straightforward.

Models carry around implicit assumptions and tradeoffs in scope and level of resolution, scale and complexity, or speed and accuracy. For instance, a high-fidelity communications model, while perhaps carefully verified for use in constructive analysis, may simply not respect the real-time schedulability required for virtual analysis and war gaming. AFSIM’s ability to iterate between large tradespace analysis and targeted utility assessment depends upon a sound multi-resolution modeling approach across temporal and spatial dimensions. This approach should also support hybrid simulations, which employ models at varied resolution in both on-line and off-line modes.

3.2.3.4.2 Focus Area: Support Modeling and Analysis across Security Domains

All initiatives intended to improve AFSIM’s representation of combined effects across warfighting domains will fail to deliver relevant MS&A capabilities unless…