Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE
Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE

Reduced integration risks and operating costs through interoperable interfaces

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Interoperability standard for military vehicles

The war in Ukraine has lent a new urgency to the baseline scenario: the armed forces of NATO countries, such as the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) established in 2015 for this contingency, must assist a partner in the alliance. Soldiers from different nations are deployed side by side. The systems and subsystems within their vehicles exchange information through an integrated information network. Interoperability is crucial for this is system to work, but only standardization can make it possible. It ensures that all of the individual components can "talk” to each other. One of the standards that makes this possible is being developed jointly by Fraunhofer FKIE and its multinational partners.

NATO Generic Vehicle Architecture - NGVA

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Today's military land vehicles are equipped with a variety of subsystems. Often, these come from different suppliers. In addition, as in the example described, systems from different nations sometimes have to communicate with each other. To integrate them all into one information network, they have to be connected with a manufacturer-specific interface. This makes modifying and extending vehicle equipment more difficult. But to ensure interoperability across manufacturers, standards are required to unify these interfaces.

Since 2011, Fraunhofer FKIE and its partners have been developing the NATO Generic Vehicle Architecture (NGVA) standard, which specifies the design of electronic and electrical interfaces for land vehicles and their subsystems. The architecture is being developed in close coordination with the German Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) and the Federal Office for Defense Technology 41 (Wehrtechnische Dienststelle, WTD 41 for short).

»Standardization involves a lot of committee work, and in the case of NATO standards that is of course at the international level,« says project manager Dr. Daniel Ota, describing the approach to the development of NGVA. Among other duties, he himself chairs three international NGVA working groups for this purpose. »We work closely with France, the Netherlands and the UK, but also with non-NATO countries such as Australia and Israel,« says Ota.

The standard specifies requirements for both the power supply and for electronic data transfer. This involves a uniform data model that describes message syntax and semantics and thus enables a standardized exchange of information. Another aspect of the standard is vehicle safety.

Finally, the standard also includes a verification procedure. It defines a generic methodology for verifying whether individual subsystems and the overall system as a whole conform to the standard.

Currently, the second version of the standard is in the ratification process at NATO. It is an update and an expansion of the first version, which was ratified in February 2018. In the future, other aspects such as cyber security will take on greater importance.

In addition, Fraunhofer FKIE operates a test laboratory where the standard is implemented. In this lab, NGVA vehicles and their subsystems can be simulated, and additional hardware and software can be integrated. Proper message exchange and the resulting behavior of the components based on the NGVA data model are tested. Manufacturers of subsystems can have their systems tested in the FKIE lab to determine whether they are actually interoperable and NGVA-ready. A second version of this test lab is installed at WTD 41 so that the test center there can also perform these tests.

»It will be exciting to see the commissioning of the first vehicle based on the NGVA standard from the initial design phase,« says Ota. Currently, such vehicles are being procured in several countries. If everything works perfectly, the added value in the procurement process and in improving combat performance in the future will be high.

In cooperation with the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) and the Federal Office for Defense Technology for Land Mobile Systems, Engineer and Troop Technology (WTD 41).


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