2012 Look Ahead Roundtable

MT2 2011 Volume: 16 Issue: 8 (December)

Industry is constantly improving technology and the products provided to the military through continuous research and development, and those improvements will have a tangible impact on military training in 2012.

Q. How will your company’s technological innovations from 2011 impact military training in 2012?

Ken Mills
Vice President
Booz Allen Hamilton
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In 2011, Booz Allen directed its innovations in military training toward live, virtual, constructive (LVC) and distributed mission operations (DMO).

Booz Allen continued to team with the Air National Guard (ANG) Distributed Training Operations Center to support warfighters, developing an efficient and effective methodology for conducting DMO within the LVC environment.

We combine our technical solution with a “manned constructive” training construct, for a robust, low-cost training environment. Averaging 15 to 20 missions daily, this solution includes 85+ remote sites and connections to other DMO networks and supports ANG, Air Force Reserve, Air Force and DHS distributed simulation needs. More than 4,000 missions were conducted in fiscal year 2011. With the planned addition of warfighter platform simulators in 2012, mission numbers will increase.

Additionally, our support to FORSCOM’s Counter IED Integration Cells addressed training deficiencies identified by the XVIIIth Airborne Corps Fires cell. This resulted in new and revised training capabilities for the VBS2 FIRES module, which enabled Joint Fires Observers and maneuver units to execute virtual indirect, rotary wing and fixed wing simulation training/rehearsals on home station or operational environment terrain.

In 2012, Booz Allen will help the military create efficiencies through integration, using service oriented architecture (SOA). Migrating existing training systems to SOA and cloud infrastructure will decrease current operating costs and avoid future costs to modernize LVC systems.

Looking ahead, these Booz Allen innovations will serve our clients by enabling affordable and highly effective operational-level C2 training. This improves integrated training and testing capabilities that encompasses the air, space, cyber and ISR mission sets across distributed joint and service-specific locations.

Dave Kanahele
Director of Simulation Solutions
Christie
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At Christie we are developing new ways to address the unique requirements of our customers, from a display system as well as an overall visual and sensor system perspective.

The Christie Matrix StIM, for instance, offers an integrated visual and near-IR projection system that meets the increasing demands for high fidelity training with night vision devices simultaneously with the requirement for accurately rendered visible imagery.

Christie was the first to offer LED simulation projection systems with simultaneous and independent visible and infrared channels, and we continue to work with our customers to ensure that the full capabilities of the display system are exploited by optimizing other processing elements in the simulator.

The Christie Matrix StIM continues to be a market-leading system. The dual channels offered by this project are a true innovation, and the independent infrared LED available in this lampless system allows our customers to adjust the balance of near-IR energy to visible light by independently processing and displaying image content across the red, green, blue and near-IR channels.

In 2010, Flight Safety International was the first to use the proven dual input capability of the Christie Matrix StIM for the CH-47F Transportable Flight Proficiency Simulators. Recently, the Thales Group’s Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) Culdrose, in the U.K., upgraded with several of these projectors to ensure the Commando Helicopter Force and Airborne Surveillance and Control crews had access to state-of-the-art and realistic imagery from the pilot’s cockpit. This advanced capability offered a solution to a critical gap in the night-vision training syllabus for the RN Sea King aircrews.

Darren Humphrey
Chief Technology Officer
Disti
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Numerous studies have shown an increase in training effectiveness through virtual training, while simultaneously reducing cost and course length. Until recently, proprietary in-house tools have been the most common method to develop virtual training.

In 2011, Disti launched Replic8, an innovative COTS tool for the development of compelling 3-D interactive maintenance and task training applications. This new tool makes it possible for courseware developers and graphic artists to produce and distribute 3-D interactive training content.

Three-dimensional models and animations developed in 3D Studio Max seamlessly drop into Replic8 and become instantly usable as 3-D interactive training content, without any programming. Training lessons are then created with an “author by doing” workflow. The author simply records all of the steps in the lesson by interacting with the 3-D model in the Replic8 editor. Replic8 turns the recorded actions into the framework for the training lesson. The author can then tweak the timing for each step and insert instructional content, such as caution or warning messages.

In 2012 and the years following, military training schools will be able to enhance their training curriculum by using Replic8 to quickly and affordably develop virtual training applications. Once instituted into training courseware, these training applications will ultimately increase overall student throughput and provide our warfighters with the advanced training needed to become well-versed modern maintainers and operators. ♦

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