ORLANDO, Fla. – The latest advances in realistic training and simulation at Lockheed Martin add complexity to put soldiers in settings more like what they’ll see on the ground and in the air around them.
Head-wearable lenses augment reality in simulations to put the trainee in a 3D environment where he has peripheral vision — and then throws him a curve ball: unexpected elements come at him in that space.
“The next evolution we’re working on in developmental contracts is bringing in augmented reality,” said James Weitzel, vice president for training solutions at Lockheed.
Trainees using the head-wearable virtual reality display will see a realistic setting, and also see targets that aren’t really there.
Someone wearing the headset can see, for example, an interior space, and with a turn of the head, can see the space above, below and around him as if he was standing in it.
“Now you can insert any target you want, in any location,” Weitzel said. “That technology is getting pretty mature today.”
The training is now very immersive, he said, and soldiers are used to that. Lockheed is taking gaming technology and upping the experience for ground troops. For example, in a video where troops are targeting a site that doesn’t exist, but to them it’s real, a tank heaves into their peripheral vision and across the road in front of them. But wait: then an F-18 zooms in. The battle scene gets crowded.
“This is where we’re going next,” Weitzel said.
These complex experiences “will be ready soon in technologies where we use those optics, where somebody straps this on to get that immersive experience,” he said. “It’s not like Star Trek where there’s a holograph, you have to be able to project an image … to immerse someone in it so it doesn’t feel like it’s a game.”
Air-Ground Integration
In a first for the Army, Lockheed this summer delivered its Digital Air Ground Integration Range (DAGIR), the Army’s first range to integrate air and ground assets with digital instrumentation, giving soldiers individual feedback on their performance.
The range opened in late summer at Fort Bliss, Texas, and Lockheed has contracts for two others, in locations to be announced.
At the live-fire range, air and ground assets coordinate as they move down the range simultaneously, making sure they’re in sync. On the range, four miles wide and 10 miles long, everything is integrated and instrumented, Weitzel said. Data is sent wirelessly to the command and control station, and it’s all recorded, including what happened inside the vehicles.
Soldiers who have done the exercise get immediate feedback, and get video evidence of it that they can take with them on a DVD for after-action review.
On the range, the platoon is evaluated on its ability to perform tasks. The type of training may vary from unit to unit as soldiers prepare for the next deployment. For example, some units may train without aviation assets.
The feedback from commanders about the range is “very, very positive,” Weitzel said. “The commanders out there were waiting for this capability for a while, it elevates the way they train.”
“This type of training tends to be very expensive,” said Ralph Briggs, Army lead for business development at Lockheed. “It uses real ammunition and it’s more dangerous.”
So training for individual soldiers starts with immersive virtual reality systems, then they are trained up to designated levels so there is confidence they can be successful, as opposed to taking them right to the live-fire level, Briggs said.
Improved Gaming Technology
The gaming technology used in simulations is getting close to perfect in terms of acuity, Weitzel said. It’s at 20-40 acuity now and the next generation will be closer to 20-20.
“The commercial technology is taking it to the sweet spot,” he said.
Senses come into play, including sounds and even smells. Lockheed is aiming for an experience “so immersive you get so caught up in that scenario, that event, and you lose that break that this isn’t real,” Weitzel said.
What the military is asking industry to provide, at a macro level, is increased immersion, decreased cost, acquisition models that make sense, and the ability to own, operate and maintain systems, Weitzel said. The military wants open architectures so changes can be made to tailor the systems.
“We hear a lot that instead of having a contractor required to support all these simulations, they want a sergeant to have the ability to go in and train a squad,” Briggs said. “They won’t be sending as many out to training at the National Training Center so what they want to be able to do is replicate at home station as much of that as they can.”
That leads to enhanced instrumentation ranges and the immersive experience is at locations closer to home, to save costs.
“From an investment standpoint the services are getting great bang for the buck,” Weitzel said.
With some training and simulation systems, the demand is shifting overseas.
“More of our forward-looking business is international,” Weitzel said. “More of my business this year is with the international community, moving forward it’s very related to that.” ■
Email: kcurthoys@armytimes.com.
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