Multilateral Interoperability Programme 

A complimentary and parallel programme, the Multilateral Interoperability Programme (MIP), was established by the Project Managers of the Army Command and Control Information Systems (C2IS) of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States of America in April 1998 in Calgary, Canada, to replace and enhance two previous programmes: BIP (Battlefield Interoperability Programme) and QIP (Quadrilateral Interoperability Programme).  

In October 2001, the ATCCIS and MIP nations decided to merge in order to prevent divergence, to save resources, and to foster interoperability in a broader arena.  The ATCCIS ethos was passed to the enlarged MIP and MIP has taken the responsibility of keeping and further developing the ATCCIS specifications.

The enlarge MIP detailed objectives are described in the right-side note.

The hi-level objectives of MIP are as follows:

Block I consisting of:

  Message Exchange Mechnism (MEM): to have improved structured message (ADatP-3) capabilities supporting vertical and horizontal interoperability of C2IS at all levels from corps to battalion, or lowest appropriate echelon, fieldable beginning in 2003.

  Data Exchange Mechanism (DEM): to have a (push) data exchange capability that supports vertical and horizontal interoperability of C2IS at all levels from corps to battalion, or lowest appropriate echelon and is able to coexist with the agreed MEM, with an initial fielding during the period 2003 - 2005.

Both objectives are based on the ATCCIS Land C2 Information Exchange Data Model (LC2IEDM).

Block II follow-on effort is focused on:

  Deriving new systems requirements from the evolving operational requirements and defining new capabilities building on the foundation of the previous MIP (MEM / DEM) and ATCCIS (LC2IEDM) work,

  Sustainment of the previous MIP implementations and ATCCIS products,

  Exploring emerging technologies in support of the preceding objectives.

Objectives

  Operational: To specify the detailed Information Exchange Requirements (IERs) to support military operations in war and crisis response operations (CRO), and provide operational interfaces in fieldable form to enable the C2IS of the nations involved to interoperate at and between specified levels of command.

  Procedural: To specify the procedural aspects of the MIP Information Exchange Requirements (IERs) supporting the above operational goals, ensuring maximum commonality at formation and unit command levels. To support those IERs in each and every interoperability solution devised under this programme.

  To continue development and maintenance of the Land C2 Information Exchange Data Model (LC2IEDM) and associated data management activities from ATCCIS.

   Technical: To define and maintain the current MIP MEM message exchange capability. To define, develop, test and demonstrate a MIP DEM data exchange capability based on developed ATCCIS specifications that supports vertical and horizontal interoperability requirements. 

Enlarged MIP Members

Merging Process 

The ATCCIS programme merged with the Multilateral Interoperability Programme (MIP) in early 2002. 

The nations and HQs that are active in the enlarged MIP programme are: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy,  Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, SHAPE, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States .  

In addition Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and RHQ AFNORTH are expected to join; and Switzerland, Finland, Lithuania, Sweden, NATO Consultation, Command, and Control Agency (NC3A), NATO HQ Consultation, Command, and Control (C3) Staff and NATO Data Administration Organisation Staff have expressed interest.

These nations and agencies wish to achieve international interoperability of Command and Control Information Systems (C2IS) at all levels from corps to battalion, or lowest appropriate level, in order to support multinational (including NATO), combined and joint operations and the advancement of digitization in the international arena. The enlarged MIP will build, in an evolutionary way, on the baseline of interoperability already provided by the MIP and ATCCIS products.

The MIP members signed a Statement of Intend (SOI), which describes the scope and intent of the enlarged MIP.

MIP Structure

   MIP has a three-tiered structure. The upper level is MIP Steering Group (MSG), that establishes the overarching programme policy, direction and oversight, the medium level is the Programme Management Group (PMG), that provides management guidance and oversight at the task execution level to facilitate coordination, and the lowest level is the working group level, with the Operational, the System Engineering, the Data and Procedural ,the Technical, the Exercises and Demonstrations and the Configuration an Control WGs.

Enlarged MIP structure

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Remarks

Formats remark:

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WEB

MIP has a Home Page in:

   MIP

The merging process