MT2 19.7 (October 2014)

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Special Section: Medical Simulation Resource Guide

Integrated Trainer Gen. David G. Perkins Commanding General Army TRADOC

Targets O Squad Overmatch O JRTC MOUT Training O Distance Learning

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October 2014

Volume 19, Issue 7

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military Training technology Features

October 2014 Volume 19, Issue 7

Cover / Q&A

SPECIAL SECTION

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8

Medical Simulation Resource Guide

Medical simulation plays a critical role in maintaining operational readiness for military medics, and the developers who provide these solutions are consistently using innovative technologies to meet the needs of the military. Listings highlight some of the leading companies in the field.

Training for the City

The operations in Iraq and Afghanistan reminded the U.S. military that combat often takes place in cities. Before operations commenced in Southwest Asia, U.S. forces had de-emphasized training in built-up areas in favor of mobile and maneuver operations training. The Department of Defense had to play some catchup to get its training infrastructure for military operations on urban terrain up to speed.

By Peter Buxbaum

16 General David G. Perkins

4

10

The warfighter requires on-demand training, but traditional methods can be costly and time-consuming and keep the warfighter away from family.

Today’s military is capable of delivering this training to the warfighter 24/7 on most mobile devices through distributed learning.

By Brian O’Shea

When the 3rd Brigade Combat Team “Rakkasans,” 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), recently descended from the night sky into the Joint Readiness Training Center, it not only marked the first largescale joint forced-entry air assault in more than 11 years, but also signaled a larger shift in how the Army executes training missions.

By Nancy JonesBonbrest

Unlimited Access Learning

Readiness Center Realigns Training

Departments 2 Editor’s Perspective 3 Program Highlights 14 data packets 26 Team orlando 27 Resource center

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A study is examining if extreme stressors can be put into existing live, virtual, constructive and gaming environments to increase soldier resilience and situational awareness when experiencing the trauma faced on the battlefield.

By Rick Gregory

Firing ranges are among the most basic and essential tools of military training, and the Army’s current goals are to maintain range capabilities and improve instrumentation. At the same time, however, service leaders are looking to shift to systems that reduce life cycle costs and use scarce resources effectively.

By Henry Canaday

Overmatch Study Seeks Soldier Resilience

Right on Targets

Commanding General U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command

“But as we have found, supplementing field exercises with digital technology that closely reproduces battlefield situations greatly increases training

Industry Interview Steve Hill

Co-Founder and President/ CEO The AEgis Technologies Group Inc.

effectiveness.

As a result, the Army is rapidly moving forward with technology that

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makes training more efficient, productive and, most importantly,

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EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE

Military Training Technology Volume 19, Issue 7 • October 2014

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Reacting to the news that the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) will reactivate a streamlined 19th Air Force only two years after the command was put in mothballs, a commentator on Wikipedia recently offered this cynical observation: “Cut back, plus up, cut back, plus up, rinse, repeat ... standard.”

Given the relatively rapid reversal on the status of the 19th Air Force, which was established in 1993 with the mission of providing flying training for AETC, it is understandable that a skeptical observer might see another example of the endless cycle of consolidation and Harrison Donnelly decentralization that afflicts all bureaucracies, or the destabilizing Editor impact of changing budget priorities. But whatever you think about the unit’s 2012 inactivation, it seems appropriate at this point for the Air Force to have a separate, high-level organization dedicated to flight training.

The earlier move was part of a major cost-cutting restructuring of the service that also included closing two other numbered air forces (NAF) and consolidating air operations centers. The goal was to save money by streamlining the NAF management layer, which tends to focus on operational issues.

The savings were not there, however, and questions arose about proper command relationships and training oversight. A Rand Corp. study found a need to realign responsibilities, leading to the reactivation of the 19th Air Force at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas.

“Activating [the] 19th Air Force under AETC will allow for appropriate command and control, efficient management of limited resources and consistency across installations and will clarify responsibilities between the major command and subordinate units,” said Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James.

So, welcome back to the 19th Air Force, which will include 19 training locations, 10 regular Air Force wings supported by six Guard and Reserve wings, approximately 32,000 personnel and more than 1,350 aircraft of 29 different models. They’ve never really been gone, though, since no new positions or authorizations, including the commander’s, will be created as a result of the new NAF. The infrastructure and manpower of the 19th Air Force will be drawn from previously existing resources.

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PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Air National Guard Orders Resource Management Training Crew Training International (CTI) has received a contract of more than $1 million from its longest-running customer, the Air National Guard (ANG). This follow-on contract is with the Air National Guard Readiness Center and Cockpit/Crew Resource Management Training (CRM).

CTI will provide the ANG with engineering support and design services associated with weapon system supportability issues in the areas of technical training,

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Modeling and Simulation Tools Fight WMDs

support equipment and courseware for the CRM program throughout the ANG. CRM training is one of the areas CTI is most wellknown for, and CTI will prepare all course materials and conduct classroom training for the ANG CRM Facilitator Training Courses, including the RC-26B CRM Recurrent Course, Reaper CRM Baseline Course and Guardian Angel CRM Recurrent Course.

Matthew Black; mblack@cti-crm.com

Alion Science and Technology has won a $11.4 million Defense Threat Reduction Agency contract to develop an integrated set of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosives modeling and simulation tools to support counter weapons of mass destruction mission operational support, analysis and training.

Under the contract, Alion will make enhancements to the Forceon-Force Evaluation and Analysis of Key Performance Parameters (FREAK) toolset by modernizing and managing code and software development, software production and distribution. FREAK is a comprehensive solution that supports training, security analysis and investment decision support related to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The system can accurately model the most challenging WMD situations.

Garry Schwartz; gschwartz@alionscience.com

Army Selects Mobile Instrumented Training System Cubic Corp. has been selected to supply the Army Mobile Instrumented Training System (AMITS) for the Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation. The initial award is valued at $12.5 million, and the contract, if fully funded, has a potential value in excess of $200

million. The five-year contract covers a base year and four option years. Under the new contract, Cubic will provide a mobile training command center and mobile network nodes as well as instrumentation radios for soldiers and vehicles. AMITS provides a force-on-force training experience where data is collected,

System Prepares Pilots for Jet Trainer Aircraft L-3 Communications has announced that its Link Simulation & Training (L-3 Link) business has received an award from BAE Systems to develop the Hawk Oman Training System. The training system, which is planned to achieve its ready-for-training milestone during the first quarter of 2017, will prepare Royal Air Force of Oman pilots to operate BAE Systems’ Hawk MK166 advanced jet trainer aircraft. L-3 Link’s innovative solutions provide a full spectrum of state-of-the-art training technologies, including high-fidelity immersive simulations and distributed academic and interactive courseware. The company has delivered military, civil and commercial training systems to customer locations throughout North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim. Chuck Williamson; charles.williamson2@l-3com.com

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recorded and used to observe unit performance, monitor safety, teach doctrine and provide feedback to units through formal after action reviews. The communications architecture supports greater speed and scalability, as well as improved reliability and coverage for tracking live players.

System Trains for Disaster Scenarios ETC Simulation has been awarded a contract to deliver an Advanced Disaster Management Simulator training system to the Jordan General Directorate of Civil Defense.

The installed training system will be located at the Civil Defense Academy and used to train staff in critical decision-making for emergency response and disaster management.

Among the many natural and/or man-made disaster scenarios that can be trained for in the system are earthquakes, floods, storm damage, structural fires and collapses, aircraft incidents, forest fires, mass casualty triaging, industrial fires and CBRNE emergencies.

Lori Bozenbury; lbozenbury@etcsimulation.com

MT2 19.7 | 3

Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative seeks to enable the warfighter to learn anywhere at any time.

By Brian O’Shea, MT2 Correspondent The warfighter requires on-demand training, but traditional methods can be costly and time-consuming and keep warfighters away from their families. Today’s military is capable of delivering this training to the warfighter 24/7 on most mobile devices through distributed learning (DL).

The demand for DL is growing as the warfighter is tasked with increasingly complex and dynamic challenges, said Frank DiGiovanni, director, force readiness and training in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Readiness). DL can provide virtually unlimited access to learning content, increasing throughput to virtually everyone, anytime and anywhere, and on potentially any device. It allows students the flexibility to learn from anywhere on the devices most suited to their needs and learning styles.

One of DiGiovanni’s responsibilities is to oversee the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative. ADL Initiative personnel, who are the subject-matter experts on DL 4 | MT2 19.7

learning can be further reinforced when for the Department of Defense, advocate the students also engage in peer-to-peer use use of a blended learning approach in which of social media,” said DiGiovanni. “The DL is employed in conjunction with more growth of social media represents a very traditional classroom training. exciting development in the education and One way this works is through allowtraining field. I have begun to call this type ing DL content to help students selected of learning ‘transmedia learning.’ This for formal training achieve a prescribed term is repurposed from the ‘transmedia level of competence prior to arrival in the storytelling’ strategy currently in vogue in classroom, said DiGiovanni. Using DL, stuthe entertainment industry.” dents can report to the schoolhouse with a DiGiovanni has directed ADL Initiasimilar level of expertise, so some learning tive to envision a suite of services that alcan be done independently and training lows students to leverage can be more efficient within web services, virtual and the classroom. game-based environments, Also, students who are and multiple devices to enespecially good at learning able true anytime/anywhere on their own can benefit access to learning congreatly through distributed tent. and blending learning opporIn terms of new technoltunities to exercise their inogies, the initiative is worktellectual curiosity and gain ing to ensure that openfurther expertise. source standards associated “In addition, we have Frank DiGiovanni with DL are sustainable in learned that many types of www.MT2-kmi.com

light of future technological innovations.

ADL Initiative and other organizations are researching how to make content and systems smart from the start.

“We want devices and systems to ‘know’ the individual learner in such a manner that his or her preferences, competencies and context are all integrated into each learning experience,” said DiGiovanni.

“We plan to use this rich set of learner data to provide the right content at the right time, individualized to specific learners.

Part of this work is looking at ways to align learner profiles and competency networks.

The results of this research will pave the way for learning environments that will tailor content for specific learners and provide personalized recommendations based on each learner’s competency gaps.”

Another open-source technology that ADL Initiative is working on is the Virtual World Framework (VWF), which allows for quick creation and deployment of highquality interactive 3-D environments. Using the VWF, content creators can leverage modern browser capabilities to create real-time collaborative 3-D environments for education or training on any platform.

The initiative has teamed with several universities to look at artificial intelligence systems, performance-based assessments and sensor-based technologies. ADL Initiative intends to take advantage of this work to create more types of content.

For example, mobile apps, web content and real-world activities tracked by sensors, including an individual’s physiological vital

Interactive displays enable true multisite collaboration from instructor to student over a network. [Photo courtesy of Smart Technologies]

signs, can all be incorporated in learning experiences. Furthermore, the emergence of wearable technologies and augmented reality will enable new learning and performance opportunities not possible with traditional DL. “We are focusing more on narrowing the gap between artificial intelligence and human tutoring, and increasing the ability of students to understand concepts and think adaptively,” said DiGiovanni.

“Aside from the technological research, I’ve also challenged ADL to generate ideas to motivate struggling learners, ignite passion and promote cognitive agility in learners,” he continued. “A lot of research has been done by universities and industry,

Cut Suit

and we want to incorporate this research into DoD training and continue to engage with industry, academia and other government organizations in this area.”

Continuous Learning Industry offers the military a number of DL technologies and solutions with similar goals. Blackboard, for example, is a provider of software applications and related services for learning and development.

It offers a comprehensive online and mobile training environment that creates a continuous learning environment through peer-to-peer interaction, dynamic content and real-time discussions.

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Surgical Cut Suit

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MT2 19.7 | 5

This approach ultimately accelerates professional/leadership development, onboarding and impact on mission, said Paul Terry, vice president, professional education for Blackboard. Terry added that the company works with programs throughout DoD to enable military educators to deliver training to civilian and military personnel around the world.

Extending beyond a traditional learning management system, Blackboard’s solutions are designed to create a continuous learning environment. Through social learning tools, communities, virtual conferencing, assessment and competencybased learning programs, their environment connects a collaborative network of mentors and colleagues. Instructors can pull information into class discussions and help better prepare military learners for the realities they will face tomorrow, while also making the information accessible to officers in the field today.

This environment complements traditional classroom instruction by extending the course experience to web-enabled mobile devices, giving soldiers the timely, Instructors can annotate over any application, and students can see those annotations in real time. [Photo courtesy of Smart Technologies] mission-critical training they need. The combination of formal instruction with mind, not the end-user. There needs to the learning environment and tailor their informal learning and structured social be a stronger learner-centric approach to courses accordingly.” interaction allows instructors to easily education as a whole that anticipates the Terry added that these types of learncreate and deliver custom content that can needs of learners and directly connects ing solutions face the same challenges be quickly updated and re-deployed as prothem to the tools they need to be successthat most technology companies face. It’s cesses, standards or technology change. ful, he said. not easy to balance flexibility, simplicity These flexible, responsive qualities and Blackboard recently announced the and power while maintaining a great user functionalities make the integrated learnavailability of a software-as-a-service deexperience. ing environment an efficient solution that ployment option for the learning enviRegardless of the challenges, deliveraddresses the training and learning needs ronment. By adding this option alongside ing this type of training capability does of all branches of today’s military. self-hosted or privately-hosted options, have areas for improvement, said Terry.

“Our solutions not only delight learnthey are providing organizations with un“Competency-based learning and the ers, but they are easier to deploy, simpler precedented choice when deciding how use of digital badges is growing in popularto use, significantly more reliable, and they want to work on their hosting enviity as a learning approach,” offer more flexibility,” said ronments. This broader cloud approach said Terry. “It is an imporTerry. “We have made maallows customers to leverage the benefits tant model that has the jor investments into our of different deployment options. They are potential to offer learners solutions that are focused also considering ways to incorporate adapan efficient path to obtainon improving the learner tive systems with offline sync capabilities ing the skills they need to experience. We have also on mobile devices. achieve their goals. Organibrought in new features and “The tools required to wage a successful zations need to start thinktools into the workflow that campaign need to be highly sophisticated ing about building informed haven’t been there before. and rely on innovative technology at unstrategies and incorporating For example, we use the precedented levels,” said Terry. “Knowledge supporting learning tools in Tin-Can API (application Paul Terry of strategy and tactics is no longer enough. this emerging area.” programming interface) to The traditional course must evolve into a Terry added that most track any web-related learn- paul.terry@blackboard.com strategic engagement that is an ongoing learning platforms available ing activity, so if learners process not limited by time or distance. We on the market have not kept up with toread a webpage, download a PowerPoint, are focused on delivering technology that day’s learners. They have been designed take a quiz or click on a game, trainers creates a new training environment that with the needs of the administrator in can keep track of this activity directly in 6 | MT2 19.7

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anticipates what learners need in order to be successful.”

Collaborative Space Another developer of DL solutions is Smart Technologies. Their solutions are designed to ensure everyone can actively participate in remote sessions, said Gary Waliszewski, manager, federal solutions at Smart Technologies.

Smart Bridgit software connects teams with a shared collaborative space where everyone can see, write notes and make changes easily. Participants can share their desktops, write over remote applications with digital ink and use integrated audio and instant messaging for discussions and questions.

“When it comes to distance learning, our interactive displays connect to the computer that houses the educational content that the instructor will be presenting to remote students,” he said. “Smart’s solutions give the instructor toolsets that can enhance any content that they present.”

N A T I O N A L

Smart Bridgit conferencing software enables true multisite collaboration from instructors to students over a network, said Waliszewski, while Smart Technologies’ interactive displays enable an instructor to annotate over any application and allow students to see those annotations in real time.

“The ability to offer real-time, interactive collaboration would enable the military to train more effectively with the ability to have a single subject-matter expert teach personnel across different time zones at the same time,” said Waliszewski. “The ability to have content-enhancing tools would enable instructors to use visual, aural and kinesthetic learning methodologies to reach all level of personnel.”

Earlier this year, Smart announced Smart Room System for Microsoft Lync.

The Smart Room System supports levels of interaction not seen in other DL options.

By combining the Smart Room System for Lync along with Smart Meeting Pro Personal software, the warfighter can link over any application, including Microsoft Excel

T R A I N I N G

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and Adobe. It has more size options than any other Lync Room System, offering six configurations, and is manufactured and supported by one vendor.

The combination of the Smart Room System with Meeting Pro software means the system is easy to use, with sessions starting with just the touch of a finger. So it enables more time for learning and training and less time dealing with the technology.

“Smart has been involved in classroom technology for more than 20 years,” said Waliszewski. “Many of the students who grew up with that technology are now entering careers, including the armed forces.

We feel those former students expect technology to be part of their continued learning and training, so it’s appropriate for Smart to be able to offer collaborative and interactive learning and training to those in the military.” O For more information, contact MT2 Editor Hank Donnelly at hankd@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.mt2-kmi.com.

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MT2 19.7 | 7

SPECIAL SECTION

Medical simulation plays a critical role in maintaining operational readiness for military medics, and the developers who provide these solutions are consistently using innovative technologies to meet the needs of the military. Following is a list of some of the leading companies in the field.

Bohemia Interactive Simulations CAE Healthcare CHI Systems Inc. Aptima Matt Puglisi Executive Vice President Aptima’s measurement platform unobtrusively collects and analyzes data about team workload during medical simulations, giving trainers the ability to monitor and modify scenarios on the fly to maximize individual and team learning.

202-552-6121 mpuglisi@aptima.com

B-Line Medical

8 | MT2 19.7

CSC

CSE Software Inc. Casey Messenger New Business Development, Healthcare CSE Software Inc. develops interactive training for the health care community, including the Health Scholars brand. Custom development is available for serious game simulations, mobile apps and PC-based applications.

1-309-202-2587 cmessenger@csesoftware.com

Dedicated Computing Mike Pape Director, Training and Simulation Solutions As a leader in the training and simulation industry, Dedicated Computing solves the business problems of our customers through the design, development and deployment of innovative technology solutions.

262-953-1539 mike.pape@dedicatedcomputing.com

Defense Logistics Support Inc. Design Interactive Inc. Diamond Visionics Discovery Machine Inc.

www.MT2-kmi.com

NGRAIN Operative Experience Inc. Pocket Nurse Engineering & Computer Simulations Joe O’Connell Vice President, Business Development Engineering & Computer Simulations is a software development company providing instructionally sound advanced learning technology solutions. Our portfolio includes intelligent tutoring, competencybased technology, virtual worlds, serious gaming, crisis preparedness, staff training and mobile innovations.

407-823-9991 x304 joconnell@ecsorl.com

Saab SAIC Simbionix USA Corp.

Simetri SIMmerion LLC Simulab Corp.

Smooth-On Inc.

General Dynamics Information Technology Gino Auteri, FACHE, CMRP Senior Director, Business Development The medical simulation and training experts at General Dynamics IT help you develop and improve individual competence and team communication; add realism to existing training; and enhance quality improvement, performance improvement and patient safety programs.

888-545-8477 x8010 info@gdit.com

Strategic Operations Inc. Kit Lavell Executive Vice President As the pioneer of “Hollywood-style Hyper-Realistic” tactical and medical training support to more than 750,000 military and civilian first responders, Strategic Operations introduces the TCCC-EMS and Surgical Cut Suits: user-repairable human-worn simulators for point-of-injury through operating room training.

858-244-0559 kit@e-stops.com

Heartwood Inc. IngMar Medical Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Inc.

Syndaver Labs Vcom3D Inc.

Laerdal Medical Leidos Lockheed Martin Medical Simulation Corp.

Medical Training Consultants Mimic Simulation MYMIC LLC Nasco

www.MT2-kmi.com

Virtual Heroes—A Division of ARA Randy Brown Virtual Heroes Division Manager For 10 years, Virtual Heroes has been designing immersive, virtual-world-based serious games and Advanced Learning Technology applications. Our applications are powered by the award-winning Unreal Technology.

919-747-7603 randy.brown@virtualheroes.com

Virtual Reality Medical Center MT2 19.7 | 9

Recent large-scale joint forced-entry air assault exercise signals shift in how the

Army executes training missions.

By Nancy Jones-Bonbrest

When the 3rd Brigade Combat Team “Rakkasans,” 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), recently descended from the night sky into the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, La., it not only marked the first large-scale joint forced-entry air assault in more than 11 years, but also signaled a larger shift in how the Army executes training missions.

With the number of U.S. forces on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq shrinking, training is realigning from pre-deployment back to basics. In implementing the shift, the Army is leveraging lessons learned from more than a decade at war and planning for future contingencies.

The new hybrid threat training model fuses modern rules of engagement with conventional preparation. Known as decisive action training, it doesn’t shy away from cyber-attacks, insurgent threats and chemical warfare, but instead confronts these complexities head-on.

“We certainly are not going to put our blinders on and go back to the conventional force-on-force training we did in the 1980s and 1990s,” said Colonel Carl Kelly, deputy commander of group, operations group, at the JRTC. “If and when we get into a future conflict, our adversaries are likely not going to come at us straight on. It’s going to be an asymmetric fight. So regardless of what 10 | MT2 19.7

type of scenario we’re building, that asymmetric aspect has to be incorporated into it.”

JRTC provides realistic, intensive training with soldiers and commanders receiving feedback, including detailed after action reviews by observer/coach/trainers (OCTs) who rate soldiers’ performance and tactics. The scenarios unfold over the vast rolling hills and thick forests of the JRTC, and include mock villages complete with role players standing in as local forces and villagers.

Adding to the challenge is an opposing force that can bring with it any threat, including armor, chemical, cyber, conventional and unconventional.

“If you look at current events, it’s a war amongst the people,” Kelly said. “You have to incorporate a more urbanized environment that soldiers are going to be operating in. We have to make sure here at the training center that we can incorporate those scenarios that we expect soldiers are going to be faced with.”

The decisive action training is crafted both to test units and to validate their latest equipment in a complex combat environment.

For example, the 3/101 rotation featured missions where soldiers communicated using Capability Set 13 (CS 13), an advanced package of tactical communications gear providing voice and data connectivity across the brigade combat team down to the dismounted soldier. www.MT2-kmi.com

“This training literally goes down to the team level or individual soldier,” Kelly said. “We’re able to collect and deliver lessons learned from the team leader all the way up to the brigade commander so they can employ them in the future.”

For the 3/101, the latest JRTC challenge called for quickly shifting gears from their air assault into an advise-and-assist exercise in preparation for the brigade’s upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.

“At the JRTC rotation, we were able to test our air assault skills in a much more robust environment, and then turn around and do the mission rehearsal for the real deploy mission,” said Colonel J.B. Vowell, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

The Joint Readiness Training Center, located at Fort Polk, La., leverages lessons learned from more than a decade at war to Then, immediately on the heels of the provide soldiers realistic, intensive training. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Army] 3rd Brigade Combat Team rotation, the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), fell in on the 3rd Brigade Combat Team’s equipment for its own rotation. As the 1st Brigade Combat Team “Bastogne” conducted its nighttime sling-load operation during another joint forced-entry mission, the JRTC recorded observations to provide feedback on how the brigade performed, as well as lessons learned on how brigades can take over already established tactical communications equipment.

As new capabilities are continuously introduced into the force, the training center stays in front of this technology in order to capture the best tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) for the Army.

Several months prior to the JRTC rotation, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team was soldier from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), uses a Rifleman Radio during training at the Joint equipped with CS 13, which provides the de- AReadiness Training Center. The Rifleman Radio is part of the Army’s Capability Set 13. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Army] ploying soldiers with improved situational awareness, mobile mission command and data radios to help address the challenges of fewer U.S. soldiers and Training scenarios are formed on a six-month cycle, incorpomore mobile, dispersed operations. The JRTC helped the unit furrating what each brigade, based on guidance from Army Forces ther develop TTPs for using the equipment in different scenarios.

Command, may see as a threat.

“There are multiple communications tools that we used, de“We put in a lot of thought of what we want to replicate, and we pending on which phase of the operation we’re in,” Vowell said. have a lot of options here,” said Lieutenant Colonel Mark Landis, “This was probably the most complex combat training rotation I chief of staff, operations group for the JRTC. “We try not to fight have ever seen in my 23 years in the Army. We learned by leaps and our last wars, but fight what we think we’re going to see in the bounds coming to a very well-resourced training center.” future.” O With cyber-attacks also posing a risk to the Army’s tactical network, the JRTC rotations now include these challenges in their Nancy Jones-Bonbrest is a staff writer with Symbolic Systems training scenarios.

Inc., supporting Program Executive Office Command, Control, “For cyber, our goal is that the unit can identify a possible threat Communications-Tactical MilTech Solutions. or possible action against them in the network,” said Lieutenant For more information, contact MT2 Editor Hank Donnelly Colonel Steven Beaumont, senior signal OCT for the JRTC. “The at hankd@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives objective for the brigade is to identify a possible threat and report on for related stories at www.mt2-kmi.com. it so higher headquarters can respond as needed.” www.MT2-kmi.com

MT2 19.7 | 11

Adding extreme stressors to training environments helps prepare soldiers for trauma faced on the battlefield.

They refer to it as a “technology flu shot,” but a study team comprising military, industry and academia professionals isn’t recommending taking a hypodermic out and injecting soldiers with a dose of technology to prevent the influenza virus.

They are conducting a study, called Squad Overmatch, to determine if some extreme stressors can be put into existing live, virtual, constructive and gaming environments to increase soldier resilience and situational awareness when experiencing the trauma faced on the battlefield.

“The U.S. Army is extremely good at training soldiers in the eight forms of contact and getting them to perform those actions automatically,” said retired Sergeant Major Pat Ogden, the former senior enlisted 12 | MT2 19.7

adviser for the Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI), who is a participant in the study. “We do not prepare them, however, for the actual traumatic events that occur when engaging in combat.”

Ogden, who served two combat tours in Iraq and received his baptism under fire during a combat tour in Somalia, said he grew up hunting and was accustomed to seeing the carnage caused by a bullet he fired from his weapon. The first time most of today’s young soldiers witness that, he said, is in combat because they grew up in an urban environment.

“When we would be involved in an intense firefight on the streets of Iraq, I would always debrief my young soldiers to

By Rick Gregory

get their thoughts and help them cope with the stress,” Ogden said. “Their feedback was always that they were not prepared for what they just went through. My thought was, ‘If we don’t prepare you for this type of stress beforehand, how can we expect you to deal with it on the battlefield?’ Shooting at plastic silhouettes won’t provide that type of training. Through this study, we want to determine which of our training aids, devices, simulators and simulations will better prepare our soldiers.”

The end result that Ogden and the other study participants envision is to optimize soldier performance and improve training in such a way that post-traumatic stress and suicide incidents are reduced throughout the military. www.MT2-kmi.com

Their vision is backed by a study conducted in 2009 by the Mind Fitness Training Institute (MFTI), a nonprofit training and research organization. Their study concluded that training that integrates resilience and situational awareness into warrior skills training is more likely to enable soldiers to accept stressors and adapt to their combat environment.

“To create resilience, an individual needs to have a stressful experience that deliberately pushes him outside of his comfort zone and then teach his body and mind to recover effectively from that experience. In the process, his body and mind learn to tolerate and function effectively amidst more stress than before,” according to MFTI. Some members of the study group recently concluded visits to various military posts to personally gather feedback from soldiers as they utilized various training devices during mission rehearsals. Sergeant Major Alan Higgs, PEO STRI’s senior enlisted adviser, is heavily involved in the study and participated in those fact-finding visits.

A combat veteran with three tours behind him, Higgs is passionate about finding out exactly what the Army needs to do to better psychologically prepare soldiers for combat.

“During their training, we want to expose them to as many of the top stressors identified by Walter Reed’s Army Institute of Research as causing post-traumatic stress,” he said. “We need to introduce those stressors in training so they aren’t first exposed to them on the battlefield where they may freeze up. It has to be that constant exposure [to] the stress factor so we create as realistic a battlefield as we can before they get on the real one.”

Higgs points to the Medical Simulation Training Centers (MSTC) as one training system that is proving that this type of exposure to combat stress factors boosts resiliency in Army medics when they have their baptism of fire. He said it prevents them from “freaking out” on the battlefield.

Corporal Bradley Collings, a medic currently stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky., saw firsthand during his tour in Afghanistan how training at the MSTC better prepared Army medics for combat. He shared that experience during a Warfighters’ Corner session at the 2011 Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference. www.MT2-kmi.com

A soldier interacts with an avatar designed to provide squads the chance to learn to read facial cues and voice inflections that could potentially indicate danger. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Army Photo/by Shannon Russ]

“The first thing I saw trauma-wise was when an Afghan soldier stepped on an improvised explosive device,” Collings recalled. “It basically pulverized him. He flew up in the air with body pieces going everywhere.”

He said what helped him cope with that trauma was having trained twice in the MSTC before deploying.

“At the MSTC, you get the sights, the smells and the adrenaline rush of treating a casualty who was breathing, bleeding and moving, coupled with the simulated chaos of the sounds of battle,” he explained. “That really helped me not freeze up in the instant the casualty was a real person in front of me and not a rubber person.”

Higgs said that they want to incorporate this type of training in other training devices. Moving forward, they will work with the Training and Doctrine Command to define a requirement for integrating cognitive and situational awareness skills into warrior training.

“Eventually, we want to develop an instructional strategy to include a program of instruction, scenario, instructor

observation, control and after action review approach,” Higgs said. “We will also develop a graduated stress exposure training model that prescribes how to expose soldiers gradually to increasing levels of stressors over the course of the existing warrior skills training continuum.”

Other organizations participating in the study include the University of Central Florida’s Institute of Simulation and Training; the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies; Marine Corps’ Program Manager, Training Systems; Army Research Institute; Office of Naval Research; MITRE Corp.; Army Research Laboratory; Human Research and Engineering Directorate; Walter Reed’s Army Institute of Research; and the Simulation and Training Technology Center. O Rick Gregory is with the PEO STRI Strategic Communications Support Staff.

For more information, contact MT2 Editor Hank Donnelly at hankd@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.mt2-kmi.com.

MT2 19.7 | 13

DATA PACKETS Flights Test Live, Virtual and Constructive Training Lockheed Martin has taken another step forward in live, virtual and constructive (LVC) training during a flight demonstration at the company’s aeronautics facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Integrating live, virtual and constructive elements is essential to train pilots for complex challenges that simply cannot be replicated in a live environment. It enables warfighters to train as they would in a real-life combat situation, with ground, air and maritime assets fully integrated. During the flight test, a pilot flying in a live F-16 engaged in a synthetic training exercise with a pilot flying as wingman in a ground-based F-16 simulator.

Simulated sensor data sent from the ground into the aircraft provided a shared constructive training scenario for the

live and virtual aircraft.

The two F-16s cooperated to engage multiple simulated aggressors and defend against simulated ground surface missile threats in real time. The company’s Advanced Combat Enhancement System program integrates several technologies for a unique LVC solution to move data between ground and aircraft sensors, helping pilots train with simulators, computer-generated forces and other aircraft in the same synthetic environment.

Language Proficiency System Aids Pilot Training Adacel and Aerosim Flight Academy have joined forces to enhance pilot communications training at Aerosim’s campus in Sanford, Fla. Under terms of the agreement, Adacel will supply two suites of Intelligent Communications Environment (ICE) aviation language proficiency trainers, which will be integrated into Aerosim’s comprehensive pilot training programs.

Precise communications are crucial to aviation safety and consequently are

a core component in both pilot and air traffic controller training. This includes the comprehension and use of specialized aviation phraseology as well as employing correct communications procedures designed to mitigate congestion and confusion on busy radio frequencies. This can be a particular problem for students whose native language is not English and who are required to demonstrate proficiency to the International Civil Aviation Organization English standards. Adacel’s ICE

is designed to help users gain the vocabulary and comprehension necessary to achieve aviation English language proficiency. The system leverages Adacel’s advanced speech recognition technology wrapped with lesson content to create a virtual aviation communication environment to develop the use of common aviation terms and exchanges that occur during flight.

Tom Evers; tevers@adacel.com

Robotic Target System Offers New Training Challenges The TARGABOT from Caliente Defense is an advanced robotic target system.

It provides a new dimension of challenge and training engagement designed to develop or improve rapid target acquisition effectiveness and situational awareness.

Lightweight, portable and battery-operated, it offers shooters both predictable and unpredictable target presentations by combining standard targets with programmable robotics. The result is a revolutionary new moving target system on an easily deployed stationary platform.

When activated, the TARGABOT moves a target within a 180-degree arc at various extensions within that arc. Both the target presentation and target extension/retraction speeds are independently controlled, making the TARGABOT a true crawl, walk, run training system. In addition, there are seven preset patterns and an eighth mode that allows real-time remote control manipulation effective up to 1,000 yards.

John Farfaglia; john@calientellc.com

14 | MT2 19.7

www.MT2-kmi.com

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Gaming Technology Creates New Image Generator Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim) has announced VBS IG, which leverages gaming technology to create a new class of image generator ready for the simulation industry. The Army enlisted BISim’s expertise in upgrading its legacy image generator to a high-fidelity, game-based image generation solution for its Close Combat Tactical Trainer (CCTT) system.

The Army trains crews for a host of armored vehicles and mechanized units on the CCTT, a computer-driven manned module simulator. These simulators replicate vehicle interiors in close combat units, such as the M1

Abrams Tank, M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, M3 Cavalry Fighting Vehicle, the HMMWV and others. Following two years of development and testing, VBS IG will be ready as an image generator for CCTT training and available as a COTS product in early 2015. Using the CIGI standard, VBS IG will be suitable for ground, rotary, fixed-wing and maritime simulations.

BISim has optimized the VBS3 engine, originally based off a commercially successful game engine, to ensure higher frame rates when rendering scenes with long view distances and large numbers of moving entities.

Tess Butler; tess.butler@bisimulations.com

Upgrades Add New Elements to Common Driver Trainer Simthetiq was selected this past spring by Raydon Corp. for a rapiddelivery service contract to provide visual database enhancements. The upgrades added important new training elements to a pre-existing openflight terrain database for the Army’s SE-COREbased Common Driver Trainer (CDT) program. Simthetiq worked closely with Raydon engineers and simulation specialists to provide a number of new features that will extend the life of the terrain and ensure a close match with operational situations, adding river fording, potholes, bridge fallouts and a complex roundabout in the narrow and busy streets of Afghanistan.

Simthetiq was eligible to work on this important program thanks to its membership in the Canada-U.S. Joint Certification Program. Membership in the program requires companies to undergo a mutual security clearance process, which, once passed, allows them to access controlled but unclassified military-critical technical data and technology of both countries.

Vincent Cloutier; vincent.cloutier@simthetiq.com

Image Generator Delivers at Lower Cost The Rockwell Collins EP-80 Image Generator and accompanying database, recently selected by Embraer for its Super Tucano flight simulator, is a commercial off-the-shelf PC image generator product family that provides customers with high performance at a lower cost. It delivers many of the advanced features of higher-priced systems, such as advanced weather effects, night vision and infrared sensors, realistic battlefield smoke and helicopter rotor wash, all for a more competitive price.

www.MT2-kmi.com

MT2 19.7 | 15

Q& A

Integrated Trainer

Supplementing Field Exercises with Digital Technology General David G. Perkins Commanding General U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command As commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), General David G. Perkins is responsible for selecting and recruiting every Army soldier, training and educating professionals, and designing the future Army to support national security.

Perkins graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the U.S. Military Academy in 1980 and was commissioned as an armor officer.

He also holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College.

Perkins’ command assignments include 1st Battalion, 63rd Armor, 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division for Task Force Able Sentry in Macedonia; 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) during the invasion of Iraq in 2003; Joint Multinational Training Command, U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany; and 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) during the transition of U.S. Forces from Iraq in 2010 to 2011. Most recently, from November 2011 to February 2014, Perkins commanded the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, Kan. In addition to his leadership positions, Perkins’ other key assignments include special assistant to the Speaker of the House, 104th U.S. Congress; operations officer (G-3) for 1st Infantry Division; chief of the European and NATO Policy Division (J-5), Joint Staff; operations officer (G-3) for U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany; and deputy chief of staff for strategic effects, MultiNational Force-Iraq.

Q: What organization within TRADOC is responsible for integrating technology into Army training and education?

A: A major part of TRADOC is the Combined Arms Center-Training (CAC-T), which trains and educates Army leaders, soldiers and units to achieve success in Unified Land Operations. In short, CAC-T manages the Army’s training support enterprise. It is the institutional center for training products, managing training aids and facilities, and provides crucial support for field commanders throughout the Army. The CACT is responsible for the integration of technology into Army training and education.

goal remains hard and realistic field training. That is the key. But as we have found, supplementing field exercises with digital technology that closely reproduces battlefield situations greatly increases training effectiveness. As a result, the Army is rapidly moving forward with technology that makes training more efficient, productive and, most importantly, challenging.

Our central initiative is the Integrated Training Environment (ITE). The ITE creates a simulated battlefield environment stocked with many complex situations leaders and soldiers expect to find on future battlefields. This digital environment allows leaders and soldiers the capability to test and learn from dozens, if not hundreds, of potential real-world situations far greater than possible before. This methodology strengthens soldiers’ mental agility and competency to adapt to whatever real-world situation they face. Moreover, the ITE easily repeats tasks under varying conditions to respond successfully to a variety of new tasks and settings.

Q: How does the ITE work?

Q: How is the Army increasing digital technology usage to assist training?

A: Army training programs are built around the single goal of ensuring the Army is always capable of deploying forces anywhere in the world which upon arrival are fully prepared to meet any challenge or overmatch any enemy they encounter. The best way to achieve this 16 | MT2 19.7

A: The ITE allows for simultaneous training activities over multiple echelons. That means training smaller units (squads and platoons) in a digital environment so higher commands, such as at the company, battalion or brigade level, have to react to the decisions made by subordinates. In the past, when units conducted a field exercise, it was immediately followed with an after action review where everyone went www.MT2-kmi.com

over what went wrong and how they would fix it in the future. Unfortunately, often units did not repeat the exercise until they got it right.

In a simulated environment, however, units reset the situation in an instant and play it out for as often as it takes to master it. Moreover, units can take actions in a simulation in order to judge when operations become too dangerous to try in practice.

Q: Is it helping?

A: Absolutely! Consider this: On any post in the Army, you really have only a single training environment—the ground you live on. That may be near-desert conditions as at Fort Hood, Texas, or heavily forested hills at Fort Drum, N.Y. At great expense, units at these posts have built terrain replicas to train in urban environments or replicate what units might encounter in Afghanistan. In a simulation, however, units can create the exact environment they want. Imagine that from any Army post, you can create the exact environment you expect to operate in. For example, at Fort Drum, you could find yourself in the desert, at Fort Hood or in Europe.

Nothing replaces actually putting troops and equipment on the ground for training. That is where soldiers learn to act like teams and feel the true friction they encounter on the battlefield. Moreover, simulations never replicate the sheer physical and mental exhaustion soldiers endure in live training exercises. Nor can they fully replicate the all-important human domain. Actions that are easy to take in a simulated situation are infinitely harder when they affect real human beings.

Q: Given these limitations, what do simulations add?

A: They add a number of things. For one, take what I said about the human aspect of combat. What a simulation can’t do is allow soldiers to replicate the emotions they will feel when events they see on a screen are real. But simulations expose soldiers to dozens of situations, so that very few things they encounter on an actual battlefield are a novel experience. Through this, they begin to mentally process how they may react in real life and harden themselves to withstand the tremendous physiological impact of actual combat.

It is important to remember that simulations are not meant to replace field training. Rather, they are intended to allow units to start conducting field exercises at a much higher level of competency than possible before. They also let higher-level organizations train and rehearse procedures at home while preparing for deployment. While the amount of training areas at a unit’s base may have been sufficient to train units in the past, modern combat formations are typically dispersed over greater distances.

At Gettysburg, for example, it took nearly 100,000 men to fight part of a battle, which with today’s mobility and lethality would require a company or maybe even a platoon. A battalion of only several hundred men conducts operations over an operational environment today which would have required a 15,000-man division in World War II. Hence, with ITE, we expand our training opportunities to match our military capabilities using virtual training simulation to complement our live training areas.

Take a brigade that wants to train with three subordinate battalions. One battalion can deploy to the field, where, equipped with digital instrumentation, everything it is doing feeds back to a brigade staff in a simulation center. Simultaneously, the other two battalions are conducting their own exercises, possibly using multiple types of simulation programs, such as the Close Combat Tactical Trainer. Once www.MT2-kmi.com

again, all of the information from their respective simulations is also feeding into the same brigade operations center. For the first time, therefore, we can conduct realistic training for higher-echelon staffs without having to move all of their battalions to our large training location.

As we learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for the future, Army units deploy from various locations across the nation to future trouble spots. The ITE allows units at different posts to train together on the same simulation and terrain. For the first time, units thousands of miles from each other train on a common operating picture and familiarize themselves on each other’s procedures. And this is not just true for our ground combat units. Our developing family of simulations also allows unit commanders to train the entire force, including aviation and logistics, and even practice integrating elements of our joint forces (Navy and Air Force) into unified operations.

Q: What is the next step?

A: As of now, the testing is pretty much over, and the system has proven itself. Our next major challenge is deployment. The Army is fielding these simulation systems to brigade combat team locations, including Europe and Korea. Remember, all of these systems will connect to each other in order to create a seamless simulation environment that can be integrated with live training exercises throughout the Army.

Q: That is an ambitious undertaking. How are you going to keep so many disparate locations all operating off the same picture? In other words, where is the central location that will feed these systems with the information required to stay up to date, and how does it work?

A: Well, we actually thought that through and have created something I think has been aptly named—the Training Brain. If the past is a prologue to the future, our soldiers can expect to perform missions ranging from humanitarian tasks all the way to major land combat. To do so, we really need to focus not on specific threats, but on the ability to manage any threat. We therefore need agile leaders and innovative organizations able to achieve success in any operation. To help train us, we have built the Training Brain Operations Center (TBOC).

The TBOC provides a central digital depository allowing units and various Army schoolhouses to access real-world data in the form of operations and intelligence reports, surveillance feeds and message traffic, so they build their own training environment. Moreover, the TBOC provides support packages that can be fed into exercises and simulations to provide the events that drive operations. If one day the Army is told to deploy multiple divisions anywhere in the world, the TBOC ensures all of them can conduct pre-deployment training and exercises using a standardized operating picture closely replicating what they will find once on the ground.

The TBOC scenarios are more robust, as they are infused with true operational messaging and reporting. This really puts unit staffs to the test, as they have to analyze voluminous data and then build a picture of the battlefield. As a result, they rapidly become adept at sorting through duplicate and conflicting reports to determine what is truly important and develop the best possible responses. By keeping these exercises as realistic as possible, we are helping develop the experience-based judgment and decisiveness leaders and soldiers need to accomplish any mission they are assigned.

Another development is the Training Brain Repository. This webbased tool enables trainers to build their own exercises to meet specific MT2 19.7 | 17

training objectives without a team of script writers. Interestingly, all of these training scenarios are stored and available to others as well. So, let’s say I need a training package focused on an African-based scenario.

If none exists, I can use the repository’s capabilities to quickly build the simulation scenario I need. That scenario will then be available for any brigade in the Army to use for their own training.

Q: The TBOC and repository apparently hold a lot of data. Is it being put to any other use?

A: Yes. Of equal importance to how the TBOC enhances unit training is supporting education and classroom training activities. Say an instructor wanted a better, more realistic class that addressed recent lessons learned, or just wanted to halt an over-reliance on presentations. The TBOC simulations team creates dynamic visualizations, micro-simulations and gaming products that bring realism and lessons learned into classrooms, both in our professional education centers and at unit home stations. Using real-world data, visualizations and micro-simulations including 3-D models, geo-specific terrain and customized software elements are helping to bring small-unit and individual training to a higher (more realistic) level than ever before.

Their micro-simulations, built with up-to-date game engines, provide practical exercises for addressing specific training or educational needs. Recent successful examples include a suite of land navigation practical exercises and an observed fire trainer for educating soldiers on the employment of fire support.

Q: You mentioned that the testing is mostly over. How was that done?

A: I may have gotten a bit ahead of myself in that response. We have done sufficient testing to be sure that we have a robust simulation system ready for deployment to the entire Army. But the Army never stops modernizing or improving its current systems. That means we are always testing new systems and capabilities.

At the moment, much of this testing is conducted by the Brigade Modernization Command (BMC). This TRADOC organization is tasked with testing elements of the Army’s modernization effort before deploying these systems to other units. In short, every new system, network, doctrinal change or organizational change is first put through its paces by the BMC in the most demanding conditions imaginable. Only after it has been integrated into the BMC’s test unit and proven its worth is a recommendation made to adapt systems or other changes for the wider Army. To conduct these tests, the BMC employs a full brigade combat team twice yearly to assess developing and emerging network and non-network capabilities. This is the principal driver of change in the Army, allowing for soldier feedback and industry research and development to validate capability sets prior to wider fielding.

Presently, the near-term focus is on “Enabling an Expeditionary Army,” linked closely to the Force 2025. This fundamental change in the Army’s future is aimed at enabling land forces to support the elements of national power across the range of military operations. O

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Long-lasting components hit the mark on improving firing range realism and cost-effectiveness.

By Henry Canaday, MT2 Correspondent

Firing ranges are among the most basic and essential tools of Life Cycle Costs military training, and the Army’s current goals are to maintain range capabilities and improve instrumentation. At the same time, however, Although there is a lot more to firing ranges, good targets are a service leaders are looking to shift to systems that reuniversal requirement. Private companies have been duce life cycle costs and use scarce resources effectively. developing better targets that are far more realistic, “We would like industry to carefully develop and last longer, are environmentally friendly and reduce strategically choose suitable components that improve life cycle costs. reliability and maintainability, can interface with legacy For night shooting, Caliente Defense makes liveequipment and maintain concurrency,” said Lieutenfire, thermal-signature devices, including thermal ant Colonel Yolanda Frazier, product manager for digiblankets, vehicle combat ID, thermal targets for steel tized training at U.S. Army Program Executive Office silhouettes, table thermalization and 3-D vehicles for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO and silhouettes.

STRI), adding that PEO STRI wants to keep fielded sysCaliente is modernizing thermal targets by optitems relevant and capable of realistic training. mizing thermal optics while reducing cost, according Lt. Col. Yolanda Frazier Contractors should adhere to the Army’s Live to Director of Business Development John Farfaglia.

Training Transformation (LT2) processes, and target Standard thermal blankets are costly consumsignatures and device reactions should comply with ables that require constant maintenance. Caliente’s Future Army Systems of Integrated Targets standards, Table Thermalization Heaters provide thermal sigFrazier urged. natures on stationary armored targets by heating New hardware should maximize use of nondevelplywood targets, rather than using thermal blankets opmental items and off-the-shelf components, re-use that are destroyed and replaced. The system is deLT2 software and use non-proprietary software and insigned to last longer than five years, compared with terfaces, she continued. “Contractors need to ensure several months at best for thermal blankets. Caliente that future instrumentation upgrades are based on estimates payback in 18 months, and even sooner if trade analysis that facilitates and ensures the lowest maintenance and logistic costs are recognized. life cycle cost.”

Caliente’s 3-D Tech Truck and Heated Ivan use heatJohn Farfaglia Frazier also wants solid planning for technology ers to heat plastic targets, creating realistic thermal john@calientellc.com refreshment and obsolescence. signatures of U.S. Molders’ RT Tech Truck Frontals and www.MT2-kmi.com

MT2 19.7 | 19

Fat Ivan silhouettes. Thermal blankets provide one-dimensional thermal signatures, but Caliente heats trucks and silhouettes entirely, providing three-dimensional signatures that add targets for aerial gunnery.

“Best of all, there are no consumable thermal components that require maintenance and replacement,” Farfaglia said.

Caliente technology is compatible with Army Targetry Range Automated Control and Recording, so operators can instantly switch from day to night shooting without downtime for attaching thermal blankets.

Caliente products are built for long-term performance. “They have to withstand harsh environments and operate as required when needed, even if that need is five years down Caliente’s Table Thermalization Heaters provide thermal signatures on stationary armored targets by heating plywood targets, rather than using thermal blankets that are destroyed and replaced. [Photo courtesy of Caliente Defense] the road,” said Farfaglia, adding that the to give different presentations. MF-SIT responds to hits, automatic company expects to offer hit-sensing and reactive targets soon. triggers activated by soldiers or pre-programmed sceSterling Global Operations helps ranges operate narios, providing realism in moving infantry targets. within budgets, meet environmental requirements MIT is a cable-driven rail system for attack and and exploit technology to improve training now and retreat. It replicates walking at 4 to 6 kph, jogging for decades. “Long-term range needs demand a better at 8 to 10 kph and running at 12 to 14 kph. MIT exand less expensive way to get the job done,” said Matt ecutes target commands such as expose, conceal, hit Kaye, Sterling’s CEO. and fall, hit and hold, and hit and bob. MIT’s sensor Sterling’s RangeXchange solution gives ranges detects and reports hits. better training, as well as lower cost, faster and more Meggitt’s SAT and MAT simulate tanks or other efficient environmental clean-up. RangeXchange vehicles for live-fire training. They are designed to components are GreenTargets, GreenRange and withstand near-combat conditions under all weathGreenScrap.

Matt Kaye er conditions. MAT changes speed or direction and More than 1,200 GreenTargets are now being used worldwide at 47 military installations. For example, matt.kaye@sterlinggo.com raises or lowers a full T-72 flank target while moving.

SpinningMan 3-D stationary infantry targets are human silhouettes used in combined-arms training and Smart Targets on multipurpose ranges. Made of abrasion-resistant steel plate, the spinning action gives shooter and For small-arms live fire, Marathon Targets makes spotter visual recognition of a hit and minimizes the smart targets, autonomous robotic human type tarimpact of small- and heavy-caliber weapons, increasgets (RHTTs) that look, move and behave like people. ing target life and reducing cost.

For example, if one RHTT is shot, others can automatiSterling GreenTargets can be adapted with thercally scatter for hiding places or charge the shooter. mal signatures. A cold thermal signal emitted by ther“Smart targets re-invent live-fire training,” said mal tape is detectable only by thermal targeting and Ralph Petroff, Marathon president, North America. surveillance sensors.

“They bring unprecedented levels of realism to liveShannon Medina GreenTargets also eliminate use of surplus milifire training.” shannon.medina tary vehicles as targets. Their 3-D vehicle profiles are Users have achieved 100 percent or more improve@meggitt.com easily installed for live-fire training and completely ments in moving marksmanship with RHTTs, he said. recyclable. Targets range from replicas of suicideThe Marine Corps Warfighting Lab showed shots per bomber cars to technical trucks, tanks and other milikill reduced from 4.7 to 2.3. If the smart targets had tary vehicles. These GreenTarget vehicles require no moved more realistically, Petroff noted, improvements maintenance or disassembly at the end of operational would be even more dramatic. lives. GreenTargets typically cut target life cycle costs Smart targets also introduce decision-making into by up to 30 percent. live-fire training. Traditional live-fire training is reMeggitt Training Systems offers the Stationary peatable and predictable. Shooters are not trained for Infantry Target, Stationary Armor Target (SAT), Movthe chaos of battlefields. “Smart targets make smart ing Infantry Target (MIT) and Moving Armor Target shooters by forcing them to think during live-fire (MAT), according to Shannon Medina, director of U.S. training,” Petroff said.

Ralph Petroff Military Live Fire.

Smart targets also improve tactical thinking. “The Meggitt’s Multi-Function Stationary Infantry Targoal is for shooters to become pre-combat veterans,” r.petroff get (MF-SIT) allows the target head to easily change @marathon-targets.com Petroff said, suggesting that these targets support 20 | MT2 19.7

www.MT2-kmi.com

Army initiatives such as Squad as Foundation of Decisive Force and Squad Level Overmatch.

Using smart targets rather than soldiers holding sticks for silhouettes also allows many more shooters to be trained in less time. And almost any range can be converted into a smart-target target range in less than a day, avoiding the cost of setting up traditional moving-target ranges.

Marathon smart targets are robust, move almost one mile in five minutes and run 12 miles before a recharge, which takes two hours. The robots’ platform withstands even 7.62 mm machine-gun fire. The robots talk, 3-D vehicle profiles are easily installed for live-fire training and completely recyclable. [Photo courtesy of Sterling Global Operations] shriek when shot and speak any language.

Only Marathon makes these highly realistic and mobile smart targets, now in their fourth generation, Petroff said. Only one operator is needed for 25 targets, minimizing cost.

The company now offers a portable trailer that transports eight robots and does command, control and battery charging.

The Target Shop offers printed targets ranging from 12 inches to 6 feet square, noted Vice President Kraig Hall. The company makes almost any type of substrate, including paper, corrugated paper, corrugated plastic, plastic, polymer and steel. Its portable target systems mechanically deploy targets for reactive training, and it offers several types of plastic silhouettes and Ivan-style targets.

The company’s targets are distinguished from competitors’ by higher quality and attention to detail, Hall said. “We focus on mili- Smart targets can run five-minute miles and withstand 7.62 mm machine gun fire. [Photo courtesy of Marathon Targets] tary and law enforcement customers, rather than trying to be everything to everyone.”

Tactical Combat House, a live-fire, 360-degree safe shoot house to Targets are produced on high-quality stocks and packaged very train close-quarter skills, according to Steve Thomas, the company’s carefully. director of military sales. Action Target has built entire villages of The company’s target customization allows customers to fineshoot houses in Iraq, Abu Dhabi and Fort Benning, Ga. tune training programs. It provides samples of new targets prior to Action Target also provides bullet traps, including the steel Total production, ensuring that customers receive exactly what they seek, Containment Trap (TCT), which safely contains any round and allows whether it’s a custom layout or special ink to match specific lighting. for safe disposal of spent rounds. TCT can be used indoors or outdoors Target Shop can also apply special coatings to enhance performance, and combined with the company’s moving and turning targets. extending the life of corrugated products in inclement weather, for Through its subsidiary, ATA Defense Industries, Action Target ofexample. fers target systems like Moving Armor Target, Fixed Infantry Target, The company is working on the next generation of realistic tarInfantry Moving Target, Portable Infantry Target Lifter and LOMAH. It gets for training. It is designing a new type of fracture target that also offers plastic, paper and cardboard military targets through subimproves shooters’ views of hits from down range. sidiary Law Enforcement Targets.

A partnership with Intelligent Target Systems enables Target Action Target is distinguished by the variety of its products and Shop to offer cost-effective, high-quality portable target systems. its high-quality in-house manufacturing, Thomas said. A one-stop These systems include remote-controlled, pop-up and pop-out tarshop, it consults, designs, manufactures, installs, services and equips gets and trolley systems. ranges.

At the 2014 AUSA meeting in October, the company was planning to debut a new line of steel targets for heavy use with small arms. O Miss or Hit Action Target offers a wide variety of products from automated electro-mechanical location of miss and hit (LOMAH) systems and large-scale bullet traps to Crazy Ivan plastic targets and small-arms targets. One very popular military product is the Modular Armored www.MT2-kmi.com

For more information, contact MT2 Editor Hank Donnelly at hankd@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.mt2-kmi.com.

MT2 19.7 | 21

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www.MT2-kmi.com

Military operations on urban terrain systems allow warfighters to hone their skills in realistic settings.

By Peter Buxbaum, MT2 Correspondent The operations in Iraq and Afghanistan reminded the U.S. military that combat often takes place in cities.

Before operations commenced in Southwest Asia, U.S. forces had de-emphasized training in built-up areas in favor of mobile and maneuver operations training. The Department of Defense had to play some catchup to get its training infrastructure for military operations on urban terrain (MOUT) up to speed.

“They had to get the infrastructure for MOUT training set up quickly enough to train the troops before they deployed to Southwest Asia,” said Chris Bradley, former managing director of Canadian operations for Allied Container Systems (ACS), who now consults with the company.

That was the genesis of the idea to build MOUT training facilities from shipping containers. “Stick-built and concrete construction is expensive and takes a long time,” said Bradley. “Containers are easy to transport, readily available, quick and cost-effective.”

Since 2006, ACS has built MOUT training facilities from containers at many U.S. military training facilities.

The U.S. military has invested in physical facilities and virtual systems to prepare warfighters to operate in cities. Both of these kinds of systems allow warfighters to hone their urban operating skills in realistic settings before they are sent on missions. www.MT2-kmi.com

The physical facilities, such as those developed by ACS, are built to look like the environments where warfighters will eventually deploy. Another company in this field is RUAG, which offers both fixed installations and mobile combat training solutions.

Virtual systems develop MOUT skills on computer-based platforms. MetaVR has developed systems that include realistic and highly detailed virtual environments where actual urban conflicts have and could take place.

Force on Target Army MOUT training facilities, acquired by the Program Executive Office for

Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI), support multi-echelon, fullspectrum operations training up to battalion task force level, force-on-force (FOF) and live-fire force-on-target (FOT) exercises during daylight or darkness.

“Units are trained to move tactically, such as entering and clearing a building or room, engaging targets, conducting breaches and practicing target discrimination,” said Bert Ravelo, the deputy product manager for digitized training at PEO STRI. “Training in a simulated environment allows soldiers to run through different training. The overall goal is improving their tactical knowledge when faced with similar situations in theater.”

MT2 19.7 | 23

The live training systems enable soldiers to train in mission-critical tasks in a controlled environment. “These systems allow the soldier to be exposed to war-like scenarios and refine their respective skills without the consequences of failure, which may occur if faced for the first time during an actual war,” said Ravelo. “The benefits are gained during the actual execution of the mission.”

PEO STRI acquires state-of-the-art instrumentation systems that provide instant audio and video feedback with realistic training scenarios to assist leaders in honing soldiers’ urban operations tactics, techniques and procedures. The MOUT training program provides four different types of systems: the combined arms collective training facility (CACTF), the collective training facility (CTF), the shoot house and the urban assault course.

CACTF is a complex of buildings covering an urbanized area of 2.25 square kilometers. “This facility is designed to conduct operations training up to battalion task force level,” said Ravelo.

CACTF accommodates force-on-force and force-on-target training.

The CTF is a smaller-sized CACTF with 12 to 16 buildings, but containing similar capabilities. “These facilities have networkbased architectures, provide video and audio recordings of training buildings and are capable of recording in daylight or darkness,” said Ravelo. “The shoot house provides an FOT facility to train and evaluate the unit during a live-fire exercise. The urban assault course contains five stations and is used to train individual soldiers, squads and platoons on tasks necessary to operate within a builtup urban area.”

Virtual Terrain Users run MetaVR’s Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG) with virtual MOUT terrain databases on several types of training equipment configurations, ranging from simple desktop systems to immersive dome systems.

“For a simple interface, a user runs one of our virtual MOUT sites in VRSG on a desktop system with a game-like setup, and navigates through the virtual MOUT as a first-person shooter,” said Kristin Blier, a GIS analyst at MetaVR. “A more fully immersive soldier simulation uses a 360-degree omnidirectional motorized treadmill with a head-mounted display where you can walk, run and crawl while navigating through a 3-D virtual dense urban environment.”

24 | MT2 19.7

MetaVR’s virtual McKenna MOUT site at Fort Benning, Ga., is rendered in VRSG. This virtual MOUT site is delivered as part of the Southeast U.S. region of MetaVR’s CONUS++ 3D terrain. [Photo courtesy of MetaVR]

One of several urban warfare terrain databases MetaVR has built is the geospecific high-resolution virtual Leschi Town MOUT site, which was modeled after the actual Leschi Town MOUT site located at Fort Lewis, Wash. [Photo courtesy of MetaVR]

maneuvering aspect of the training simulaMetaVR has demonstrated its virtual tion exercises.”

MOUT training systems in coordination with MetaVR has also developed represenother training modes. The company built a tations of actual urban locations. MetaVR virtual MOUT for last May’s Bold Quest 14.2, has built a 3-D virtual representation of the an annual event focused on combat interopsouthern Somalia port city of Kismayo, reerability with coalition partners. flecting the shifting focus of training needs “During the interoperability exercise, our to the Horn of Africa. Kismayo has been 3-D terrain of White Sands Missile Range, actively contested by the AlN.M., was used in the Air NaShabbab terrorist group, an tional Guard Advanced Joint al-Qaida affiliate, and African Terminal Attack Controller Union forces in recent years.

Training System and the F-16 U.S. forces are also active in simulator at Holloman Air the area.

Force Base,” said Blier. “The “MetaVR chose Kismayo highly detailed rugged terrain as the location for its new virwas built using ultra-high tual 3-D environment because elevation data and high-resthe city contains varied terolution imagery. Using highrain representative of imporresolution elevation data was Kristin Blier tant training environments, very important for the human www.MT2-kmi.com

from a built-up port to dense urban streets to a sparsely populated outer region that includes a commercial airport,” said Blier.

The simulation was created using a combination of satellite imagery and ground-level photography. To overcome the lack of publicly available photographs of the city, MetaVR hired an in-country photographer who took thousands of high-resolution geo-tagged photographs.

“These photographs enabled our modeling team to accurately locate and model many of the buildings and structures found throughout the city of Kismayo,” said Blier.

“By using this approach, these photographs gave us a significant amount of detail. Key areas of the virtual city such as the commercial district include geospecific buildings and photospecific signs and trees of species indigenous to the region. Actual geolocated structures can be used as landmarks rather than the typical use of maps.”

A 3-D virtual representation of the southern Somalia port city of Kismayo reflects the shifting focus of training needs to the Horn of Africa. [Photo courtesy of MetaVR]

of sensors for various vehicles and those instruments required to represent damage in buildings and pyrotechnic affects.”

Shipping containers are the building Realistic Interactions blocks of ACS MOUT training facilities. “A 40-foot shipping container is stackable and RUAG’s offerings are based around stanrelatively light,” said Bradley. “Construction dardized platforms such as the Gladiator, a becomes an exercise in reinforcement and scalable personal fire and movement trainer cutting. Instead of shipping all the construccapable of training brigade-size groups. tion material to a site, these “RUAG offers fixed instalcan be built in a controlled lations such as the complex environment and shipped to at Walenstadt, operated in the site.” support for the Swiss Armed The container must be Forces, with fully instrumentmodified for this type of coned buildings—23 buildings struction application because fitted with more than 1,000 the container is not a rigid devices,” said Oliver Meyer, platform. “The load-carrying senior vice president of simucapacity of the top of a conlation and training. “We also tainer is only 40 pounds per offer mobile combat trainOliver Meyer square foot,” said Bradley. ing center solutions so train“It is the container frame ing can take place quickly in oliver.meyer@ruag.com that enables stacking.” Cona location of the customer’s sequently, the container structure must be choice. Both mobile and fixed solutions are reinforced and ruggedized. supported with EXCON, our intelligent softThe exterior of the container must be ware platform for operators and instructors adapted to the environment the MOUT facilto plan, conduct, control, monitor, record, ity is intending to portray. “In some cases, replay, debrief and evaluate live force-onpanels are bolted to the container, while in force training.” other cases the facade can be painted on,” said Two-way laser codes are at the core of RUBradley. “Multiple panels can be removed and AG’s offering, enabling realistic interactions bolted on if training is taking place for more between the training participants and their than one theater of operation. It comes down surroundings. “Where our solutions really to cost, time and the need for training realexcel is in the sophistication of the two-way ism within a given budget.” laser and the precision and ballistic realism Bradley foresees the future integration this can achieve, plus the full and complex inof digital training technologies into ACS’s strumentation of the buildings which allows container-based infrastructure. “Training effects to be transferred to those inside,” said technologies will be adapted to the physical Meyer. “Beyond these is the complete range www.MT2-kmi.com

MOUT site,” he said. “Trainees will be able to fire laser bullets instead of real bullets. Training technologies will be taken out of specialized facilities and put into the training site.”

RUAG is working on the development of a mobile MOUT system. “We have already delivered mobile combat training centers, but the next step is the mobile MOUT, giving our customers the chance to perform MOUT training wherever they choose,” said Meyer. “We are focusing on making the mobile MOUT usable with only a few support personnel, quick to set up and easy for soldiers to operate.”

Blier sees MetaVR’s virtual training environments used by a wider variety of operators in the future. “Unmanned vehicle operators practicing target identification, joint terminal attack controllers coordinating ground strikes, ground units participating in exercises of urban insurgent clashes, helicopter pilots practicing landing drills, and coastline security missions can all benefit from using our highly detailed virtual training environments,” she said.

From Ravelo’s perspective, future development will include upgrades to maintain training relevance as technology advances: “We envision live training supported by a blended system that includes augmented reality, combining target silhouettes, smart targets and intelligent avatars that include voice recognition and are able to react according to scenarios and interact with the troops in training.” O For more information, contact MT2 Editor Hank Donnelly at hankd@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.mt2-kmi.com.

MT2 19.7 | 25

GameTech 2014 A conference that meets the needs of today’s generation of users.

By Dolly Rairigh Glass

This year’s Defense GameTech Users’ Conference, presented by the National Center for Simulation and Team Orlando, brought together a diverse group of presenters and topics, as well as keynoters from government, academia and industry who shared their own expertise, with the underlying message that training and education must take into account today’s generation of users.

Kicking off the conference was Dr. Manny Dominguez, the deputy chief learning officer for the Veterans Health Employee Education System, and the leader in the effort to build the first VA Virtual Medical Center, a collaborative, 21st-century virtual hospital and learning environment for patients, providers and staff.

“The next generation of veterans is very tech-savvy,” Dominguez said. “We have to be like online banking and bring health care to them. We need to increase the accessibility of care and patient education, and that’s no longer limited to brick and mortar,” he said.

Waymon Armstrong, founder and president of Engineering & Computer Simulations in Orlando, Fla., followed Dominguez’s presentation about the virtual hospital. As the prime contractor leading the construction, Armstrong is very familiar with the project. He focused his presentation on the growth challenges that many companies face as they now look to transition their target market to include non-government customers and clients.

In his briefing, Armstrong shared his top 10 lessons learned while leading his company, and said he was surprised with the lack of familiarity of the modeling, simulation and training (MS&T) technology. “Even when selling to the highly educated workforce, they don’t get MS&T because they haven’t seen it,” Armstrong said. “So as we go into these firms to sell game-based learning technologies, we have to focus on educating, enlightening and evangelizing about MS&T and the diverse opportunities for its use.”

Keynote speaker Eric Preisz, CEO of GarageGames Interactive, returned to his previous home of Central Florida to talk about gaming and, in particular, how today’s learners are quite comfortable with game-based learning. But he also asked, “How important is fun?” when it comes to learning, and that maybe fun isn’t the most important factor.

“Does anyone golf here?” he asked the audience, many of them raising their hands. “And how many of you would say that golf is fun?” As the audience chuckled, he said, “I guess that depends on your definition of fun. I’m not a good golfer, but I continue to go, and usually with some pretty good golfers,” Preisz said. “I’ll be honest with you; they seem angry.”

26 | MT2 19.7

But he noted that when things align and you hit that perfect shot, it’s these peak moments in certain games that really help us.

“Think about the games that we play and the things that we do; they are not so much about fun, but have meaning and purpose, like raising children,” he said. “Is it fun? Yes, there are fun moments, but there’s also anger and frustration like when we play golf. So when we look at our training, we want to look at the big picture and say, fun is important, but what is the meaning and purpose of this training?”

In true GameTech style, Dr. Sara de Freitas, Murdoch University’s pro vice chancellor and professor of learning and teaching, addressed the audience via Skype from her home in Perth, Australia, and talked about the current trends, the latest research findings and a vision for new learning. “Generation Z is not only interested in doing well and succeeding for themselves, but they also want to make the world a better place,” de Freitas said. “We’re going to see elearning use increase as a whole. Today, e-learning is about a $56.2 billion industry, but [it] is expected to double by 2015.”

Wrapping up the week’s keynote presentations was Dr. Stephen Gilbert, associate director of Iowa State University’s Virtual Reality Application Center, which has been around for more than 20 years, and today focuses on emerging technologies. Gilbert addressed some of his lab’s research in areas like comparing the treatment of avatars versus humans, how games affect people, spatial speculation in virtual environments and how best to involve other senses in games.

“I want to share with you some future research I think you will see coming, or that you yourselves may create,” Gilbert told attendees. He said he believed there would be a lot more human and avatar control, better group dynamics modeling, and physio-bio feedback in the future.

“The sensors are an interesting way to involve physio-bio feedback,” he said. “They are getting smaller and smaller, and now you can just grab it and use it. We need to think of ways to take advantage of [them].”

In addition to the dynamic keynote speakers, there were more than 40 speakers and tutorials that contributed to the program.

Lieutenant General (Ret.) Tom Baptiste, president and CEO of the National Center for Simulation, spoke about the high quality and diversity of speakers who shared the latest gaming trends and lessons learned with attendees.

“This year’s GameTech conference ranks with the best,” he said.

“We bring together the best and brightest each year to advance gaming technology, a key enabler in advanced learning technologies.” O www.MT2-kmi.com

The advertisers index is provided as a service to our readers. KMI cannot be held responsible for discrepancies due to last-minute changes or alterations.

MT2 RESOURCE CENTER Advertisers Index Bohemia Interactive Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 www.bisimulations.com National Training & Simulation Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 www.iitsec.org SAIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 www.saic.com Simthetiq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 www.simthetiqestore.com Strategic Operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 www.strategic-operations.com TrianGraphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 www.triangraphics.com

Calendar December 1-5, 2014 I/ITSEC 2014 Orlando, Fla. www.iitsec.org

April 13-15, 2015 Sea Air Space National Harbor, Md. www.seaairspace.org

February 22-26, 2015 IDEX ADNEC, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates www.ausameetings.org/idex

April 28-30, 2015 ITEC Prague, Czech Republic www.itec.co.uk

March 31-April 2, 2015 AUSA Winter Symposium Huntsville, Ala. www.ausa.org

May 4-7, 2015 AUVSI Unmanned Systems North America Atlanta, Ga. www.auvsishow.org

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MT2 19.7 | 27

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW

Military Training Technology

Steve Hill Co-Founder and President/CEO AEgis Technologies Group Inc. As co-founder and president/CEO of the AEgis Technologies Group Inc., Steve Hill provides ongoing executive direction of the company’s 325 employees and subsidiary business units and operations. He received a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and has continued his education through MBA short courses at Vanderbilt University’s Owen School of Management.

Hill has spent most of his professional career developing, applying and managing modeling and simulation (M&S) programs, technologies and products and more recently pursuing geospatial, gaming and nanotechnology markets as well as international and commercial markets.

Q: Can you describe AEgis’ history and evolution?

A: Bill Waite and I founded AEgis in Huntsville, Ala., in 1989. Our passion has always been utilizing modeling and simulation (M&S) technology to train warfighters so they will come home from harm’s way. Like most small businesses, it was a very humble beginning, but over time AEgis evolved into a larger company of outstanding people capable of supporting the entire life cycle of M&S. Q: What are some of your key products in the Department of Defense training and simulation industry?

A: VAMPIRE (Visualization and MissionPlanning Integrated Rehearsal Environment) is an unmanned air system (UAS) simulation training platform that fully emulates all operator functions for familyof-systems SUAS. VAMPIRE Institutional Training System (ITS) is an instructor-led training system that allows a master trainer to create scenario-based training missions with explicit objectives and automated scoring events. AEgis has fielded more than 30 VAMPIRE ITS systems to DoD. VAMPIRE BAT is an embedded trainer that runs on a fielded One System Remote Viewing Terminal (OSRVT) hardware and trains operators on OSRVT operations. AEgis has sold 4,000 software licenses to VAMPIRE BAT. 28 | MT2 19.7

Q: How are you positioned in the future within the U.S. military?

A: AEgis is an experienced prime contractor dedicated to the advancement and application of M&S technologies to solve a variety of DoD challenges. Our recent, relevant experience in developing and delivering complex training systems has positioned us for a variety of opportunities within the simulation and training domain for the U.S. military.

Combat ID is a “serious game” that utilizes high-quality graphics across multiple mobile platforms ideal for individual training. Our comprehensive 3-D model library/ geospatial databases/3-D viewers incorporate our extensive experience researching, constructing and animating 3-D computer models of complex systems. We provide 3-D content for a number of interactive multimedia instruction (IMI) programs using a variety of SCORM-compliant tools that deliver content to a variety of UAV/UAS experiences. AEgis has built large simulator systems, including a Federal Aviation Administration Level C-compliant full flight simulator for the Bell 412EP helicopter, which included a cockpit that replicates the form, fit and function of the aircraft, a six-degree-of-freedom motion base, an instructor/operator station, high-fidelity image generation and a state-of-the-art visual display system.

We are currently performing a major concurrency upgrade to improve moving target simulators (IMTS) for the Marine Corps. The fully immersive IMTS training system, housed in a 40-foot diameter, 360-degree hemispherical dome, will be deployed as a sustainable, net-ready platform capable of supporting individual Stinger missile team training exercises.

Q: What are some of the new training/simulation technologies AEgis is developing for 2014/2015?

A: We are integrating our Combat ID technology into the Army’s recognition of combat vehicles, and extending our capabilities to the commercial market with virtual environment development for real estate planning and economic development projects.

Q: What is AEgis’ connection with the defense community?

A: We have a strong connection with DoD, as serving this community is the foundation of our company. We actively seek to forge profitable business and teaming relationships, participate in numerous industry professional associations and educate the legislative policymaking acquisition and regulatory functions of government.

Q: What is an example of your success in the military, and what are some of your goals (specific to the training/simulation industry) over the next year?

A: AEgis was awarded a subcontract to provide software development and IMI support in the development of a Shadow 200 TUAS training system. This training system is to be widely used by the Army for a variety of critical maintenance and training tasks. The AEgis solution reduces the amount of staff required for maintenance training and provides training flexibility for our customer. Areas of focus for the next year include an effort to diversify our customer base within DoD and market our solutions to commercial markets.

Q: How do customers benefit from AEgis’ varied resources and expertise?

A: AEgis has proven that our combination of corporate culture and mature processes are the right ingredients for success, validated by our leadership of more than 75 teams over the last decade and our execution of more than $300 million in contracts. O

shill@aegistg.com www.MT2-kmi.com

I/ITSEC Issue

NEXTISSUE

December 2014 Vol. 19, Issue 8

America's Longest Established Simulation & Training Magazine

Cover and In-Depth Interview with:

Maj. Gen. Jonathan Maddux Program Executive Officer PEO STRI

Features Visual Displays Used in military simulation, the proper visual display can make all the difference to the warfighter using it.

Air Traffic Control Systems for providing air traffic control training for military and other operators are changing rapidly along with technology.

Special Section High-Fidelity Simulation The public and private sectors are always striving for increased fidelity when it comes to simulations; some of the most innovative high-fidelity technology ever seen is currently available.

2015 Look Ahead As technology advances, industry leaders are consistently improving training systems. They discuss some the latest and greatest systems to be released in 2015.

Command Profile: Simulation and Training Technology Center

Simulated Fires

Bonus Distribution: I/ITSEC December 1-4, 2014 Orlando, Fla.

To be effective, fire training needs to be high-impact and frequent, and live-fire training simulators must realistically replicate the heat, smoke, flames and chaos of a real fire emergency.

Insertion Order Deadline: November 3, 2014 • Ad Materials Deadline: November 10, 2014

MISSION

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