default CMRE Report on "Participation of EKOE capabilities in the NATO Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXploration, eXperimentation, eXamination, eXercise (CWIX) 2015"

CMRE Report on "Participation of EKOE capabilities in the NATO Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXploration, eXperimentation, eXamination, eXercise (CWIX) 2015". Vicen-Bueno, Raul ; Bourque, François-Alex. CMRE-FR-2015-014. September 2015.

This CMRE report presents the way three capabilities of the EKOE (Environmental Knowledge and Operational Effectiveness) programme at CMRE have evolved from a NATO Unclassified (NU) environment to a NATO Secret (NS) environment. These three EKOE capabilities include inputs from the three current projects within the EKOE programme (Battlespace characterization, Understanding the underwater battlespace and Decisions in uncertain ocean environments). The normal way of providing scientific and research outputs from the EKOE programme is done through the participation/organization of sea-trials at NU level. The evolution of the three capabilities is due to the need of providing these scientific and research outputs at NS level so that these outputs can be available for NATO and nations in future exercises and/or operations. This evolution has been facilitated through the participation of the EKOE programme in the NATO exercise CWIX 2015 (Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXploration, eXperimentation, eXamination, eXercise). This participation has been done in collaboration with the CASW (Collaborative AntiSubmarine Warfare) and MSEC (Maritime Security) programmes at CMRE, where these programmes also deployed three other capabilities. The three capabilities participating from the EKOE programme were: OC data (oceanographic data and forecast), EnvAs (environmental and risk assessment) and Asset Planning. These capabilities have been developed considering highly interoperable standards, already adapted by NATO or in process of being accepted as standards. High success rates in terms of successful executed test cases with other NATO and national capabilities were achieved. Some improvements were identified in the three EKOE capabilities. This will make them much more robust and mature in terms of interoperability. The identified improvements have to be implemented in next steps/increments before participating in future NATO and national exercises. Finally, it is a highlight that interaction with more than 40 different capabilities from different focus areas (GeoMETOC, Maritime, Modeling and Simulation and Joint Vignette) and from 10 different nations and 3 NATO bodies/centres were achieved for the three EKOE capabilities. This high interaction denotes the high interest of the NATO nations and bodies/centres in CMRE/EKOE scientific and research outputs.