The National Defense Applications Modeling and Simulation Conference (USMOS) is the first and only conference in the field of modeling and simulation in Turkey and is organized biennially by the Ministry of National Defense, Turkish General Staff, Presidency of Defense Industries, the Defense and Aerospace Industry Manufacturers Association (SaSaD) and the Middle East Technical University Modeling and Simulation Center under the sponsorship of defense industry companies.

With the main theme of “Modeling and Simulation in the Big Data Age”, the USMOS 2019 Conference was held for the eighth time this year on November 19-20, 2019 at the METU Culture and Congress Center with 542 participants. Chairman of Pınar KARAGÖZ, Vice Rector Prof. Mehmet T. ZEYREK, Chief of General Staff, Force Development and Resource Management Department Head Rear Adm. Hakan ERCAN, SSB Vice President Mustafa Murat ŞEKER, MoND R&D and Technology Department Head Esra ŞENEL participated in the opening ceremony of the conference as speakers. Following the opening speeches, Prof. Erdal ÇAYIRCI, Işık University Faculty Member from Computer Engineering Department delivered a speech titled “Effects and Relationship of Big Data on Military Modeling and Simulation”.

During the conference, two training sessions were held by Prof. Veysi İŞLER, Hasan Kalyoncu University Faculty Member from the Computer Engineering Department on “Military Applications of Augmented Reality” and by Gökberk CİNBİŞ, METU Faculty Member from the Computer Engineering Department on “Military Applications of Deep Learning”.

During the conference program, 13 parallel sessions were held under the topics of Big Data, Augmented Reality, Engineering, R&D and Testing, Aviation Applications, Simulation Infrastructures, Activity Evaluation, Geographic Information Systems, Analysis and Decision Support, Conceptual Modeling, MODSIM Development Processes and Interoperability. 45 papers were submitted and evaluated by the Academic Committee and 2 of which were deemed worthy of an award.

On the first day of the conference, Hüseyin Buğra Han AYYILDIZ (SSB) moderated a panel titled “Modeling and Simulation in the Defense Industry in the Big Data Age”. On day 2, a session was held for the participants who wanted to learn about the experiences of the NATO Modeling and Simulation Group meetings and the projects in the Group. 7 poster presentations were made at the fair area and many companies and institutions from the public and private sector had the opportunity to present their projects and products.