ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 CAE and Rockwell Collins have joined forces to develop live, virtual, constructive training solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two companies announced the collaborative development agreement at the Interservice\/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The training and simulation industry is trying to make integrated LVC more routine, and so Rockwell and CAE \u2014 often competitors \u2014 decided to work together to make it more commonplace, Gene Colabatistto, CAE\u2019s group president for defense, told Defense News in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat is part of the reason we announced this joint development and demonstration with Rockwell \u2014 to show that different technologies from each of the companies, different terrain-database formats, different systems can interoperate more routinely in a secure, seamless, interoperable environment,\u201d said Chris Stellwag, a spokesman for CAE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the show, CAE and Rockwell are conducting several demonstrations of an integrated mission-training exercise \u201cusing fully connected LVC training elements,\u201d according to a CAE statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The companies are connecting a live-flying, LVC-enabled L-29 aircraft simulated to be an F-18 fighter and operated by the University of Iowa\u2019s Operator Performance Laboratory, with a variety of virtual simulators and constructive forces to demonstrate an \u201cintegrated, joint, multi-dimensional mission training environment,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Virtual blue force, or friendly, F\/A-18 aircraft simulators and an E-2 aerial surveillance platform are being networked into the demonstration at the Rockwell Collins booth during the conference with Naval Combat System Simulators and remotely piloted aircraft desktop trainers at the CAE booth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Constructive enemy and friendly forces will be \u201cinjected\u201d into the live and virtual training systems during the demonstration to show \u201cimmersive\u201d LVC training capabilities, according to CAE, and both companies will conduct distributed command-and-control tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the recent past, \u201cthe simple act of connecting my simulator to your simulator was not trivial,\u201d Colabatistto told Defense News. \u201cWe had to work through technical challenges that had not been tackled before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ability to set up demonstrations, to include the massive LVC exercise held at I\/ITSEC every year called Operation Blended Warrior, is improving, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Networking simulators and systems together for LVC training is also growing more important, which is why there is a distinct trend from recent years where the training and simulation industry\u2019s focus was very device-oriented, Colabatistto said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But now there is an increased interest in not just training a task, but training for specific missions \u2014 something for which the U.S. Army and the other services are directly requesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n