5 Oct 2009

NATO Armaments Meteorological Kernel (NAMK)

Part of the SG/2 Sharable (Fire Control) Software Suite (S4)

Under the Auspices of NATO AC/225, Land Capability Group 3 on Fire Support, Sub-Group 2 on Accuracy and Ballistics, using controlling authorities from the STANAG 4537 and AOP-37 documents, a suite of shareable software kernels has been created conforming to the SG/2 Quality System defined in AOP-49.

Technology for the NAMK is developed with support from MCMG/WG-BMWG (Battlescale Meteorological Working Group).

Contributions

CAN leads the development of Confidence Index technology. DEU is developing meteorological forecast technology. DNK provides the role of Quality Assurance Leader for the METM product. FRA is developing meteorological forecast technology together with DEU. GBR provides the roles of Product, Development and Quality Assurance Leader for the GMVerify product, and currently also the role of Development Leader for the METM product, NLD supports the development of the METM product. NOR provides the role of Project Leader, and will provide the role of Development Leader for the METM product from 2010. USA provides the Independent Safety Auditor (ISA) verification role for SG/2, and contributes in the development of Confidence Index technology.

NATO Armaments

Meteorological Kernel (NAMK)

Part of the SG/2 Sharable (Fire Control) Software Suite (S4)

NAMK project has two products to be released in November each year, and only to be dependent upon the NASS product:

METM: Provides services to handle meteoro-logical data for other S4 products and the OPr, i.e. determine meteorological data values in 4D space, as well as validation, sub-setting and conversion to other formats. The source data format can be METGM or METCM.

GMVerify: End user software tool to validate and sub-set METGM and conversion to other formats. The core functionality is provided by METM.

NAMK will also include two future products currently not yet under development:

Confidence Index (CI) is expected to provide a broad indicator of the level of forecast risk, or high/low probability of consistency between the forecast and the actual atmosphere.

Modelling: The purpose is to refine meteoro-logical forecasts by assimilating local measurements and by including high resolution terrain data.

For more information visit:

www.aop-37.org

or email:

namk_pl@aop-37.orgNA

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METM: The MET data Manager Product

The scope of the product is solely meteorological data handling, and does not provide any forecast capability. The main format is the gridded mete-orological message, METGM, which is detailed fully in STANAG 6022.

Services include the validation of supplied data files in METGM format (initially only ballistic parameters supported), spatial and temporal sub-setting from a large METGM to create smaller areas and/or fewer time-slices, sub-setting of parameters and conversion of METGM to METCM (STANAG 4082) or other formats for a given x, y, z, location at time t (e.g. battery centre or mortar line centre) within the METGM dataset.

The key operational service includes calls to supply meteorological parameters at given x, y, z, and time e.g. for ballistic computations in NABK. METCM functionality is in the process of being transferred from the NABK to METM. Capability to handle meteorological data in the WMO GRIB format will be included in the future.

The METM is written in the Ada programming language with code conforming to the S4 Ada Coding Standard (S4ACS).

GMVerify:

The GMVerify Product

Although the core functionality is provided by METM, GMVerify is considered to be a separate product. The GMVerify product is a tool for use by producers and manipulators of METGMs. Services include the validation of supplied METGM data files, spatial and temporal sub-setting from a large METGM to create smaller areas and/or fewer time-slices, sub-setting of parameters, adding hash (fingerprint) for integrity checking as well as conditioning and compression of a METGM data file (core functionality provided by NAGIK product).

The product consists of the command driven GMVerify back-end written in the Ada programming language and the GMVerify front-end for Windows (GMVerifyWin) as shown below. GMVerifyWin is written in Visual Basic and requires the .NET framework 2.0 or newer to run. The GMVerify back-end is platform independent as all other S4 products are. Typical use of GMVerify is at the WAC (Weather Analysis Centre) to process METGM data files before shipping to theatre.

CI: The Confidence Index Product

This is a future product where the technology is still under refinement. The CI is expected to provide a broad indicator of the level of forecast risk. Low value indicates high forecast risk, while high value indicates, but does not guarantee, high probability of consistency between the forecast and the actual atmosphere.

The CI value will be the outcome of a rule based post-processing of the METGM data file to be assessed. The rules assess synoptic-scale patterns indicating meteorological conditions that forecast models may handle poorly.

The intended use of the CI value is for decision aid (use forecasted METGM or sounded METCM), and input for computing error budget for projectile impacts due to meteorological conditions. The NIFAK product is a potential user.

Modelling:

The Modelling Product

This is also a future product where the technology, or more correctly how to use available technology, is still under refinement. The purpose of a modelling product is to refine meteorological forecasts from a WAC by assimilating local measurements and by including high resolution terrain data.