BAE Systems, Red Hat, and The Weather Company redefining military simulation environments

BAE Systems is revolutionizing military simulation environments through a new collaboration with Red Hat and The Weather Company. This strategic collaboration more seamlessly incorporates weather data into BAE Systems' various synthetic training environments, including modeling and simulation. Built on Red Hat's OpenShift and leveraging The Weather Company's success in integrating critical weather data within Department of Defense (DoD) frameworks, this adds a new level of realism to simulations.

BAE Systems and Red Hat showcased live demonstrations of these solutions at I/ITSEC 2023 in Orlando, Florida. The companies exhibited next-generation constructive simulation environments, digital twins of the Earth for simulation, and the most advanced synthetic training environments. Attendees saw how this collaboration harnesses real-time and forecasted weather into common terrain models and use cases for the military, including air defense, infantry, communications, and special operations.

"We’re thrilled about our efforts to develop digital twins of the Earth with real-world data like weather, which is a critical element for achieving an advantage in simulated military operations," says Peder Jungck, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems Intelligence Solutions. "With the Red Hat OpenShift collaboration, our wargaming platforms are able to more swiftly scale and adjust to customer requirements."

The migration of BAE Systems Kubernetes, an open-source platform facilitating the automation of manual processes, to Red Hat OpenShift enables the delivery of capabilities at the pace customers demand and allows for a smooth transition into government cloud.

"We’re excited to collaborate with BAE Systems and The Weather Company on this innovative initiative for advancing military decision-making capabilities in the field," says Jim Keenan, vice president, DoD sales, North America Public Sector for Red Hat. "When it comes to achieving a real-time decision advantage in theater, having the agility to scale these capabilities more quickly and seamlessly between cloud environments with enhanced security features is a top priority. With Red Hat OpenShift, BAE Systems is able to help their DoD customers achieve these goals and realize the next generation of military decision-making."

"In defense analysis, planning and simulation, weather can influence an aircraft's performance, the tempo of ground operations and the viability of critical infrastructure," says Sheri Bachstein, CEO of The Weather Company. "To help effectively address these challenges as weather events become more intense, it's critical now more than ever to incorporate reliable, globally scaled, real-time and predictive weather data and insights into defense planning and simulation environments."

Red Hat is currently a strategic member in BAE Systems' Mission Advantage, a partner program used to accelerate technologies to solve the customer's evolving mission needs.