Soldiers from a brigade combat team are at a combat training site doing a routine live-fire exercise. Well, maybe not so routine.
Suddenly enemy jets come out of the clouds streaking toward them. The warriors scramble for canopy as missiles rain down.
They hear the explosions from the missiles impacting throughout them, see the flames and debris and smell the smoke.
But this is often where it gets a little eerie.
Those enemy jets are being piloted one thousand miles away by fellow brigade combat team, or BCT, Soldiers, some in aircraft simulators and others on computer gaming stations.
The Soldiers see the visual recreations of these jets in real-time through special glasses that permit them to determine the important world around them, while simultaneously viewing the simulations.
Data from the simulations stream in to the Soldiers’ glasses from satellites and ground relay stations.
In turn, the pilots in simulators and people using gaming stations see what Soldiers are doing within the live environment by satellite and unmanned aircraft video feeds and sensors at the Soldiers that transmit precise locations and activities.
Sounds of the battle are generated through special earpieces that harmonize with the visuals and the smells are pumped in through special odor machines.
Pipe dream?
Not really, said Col. John Janiszewski, director of the National Simulation Center, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
“We’re now staring at an idea called the long run Holistic Training Environment Live Synthetic” as a way to eventually do that and plenty more, he said.
“We’re now documenting the necessities,” he said.
By next year, Janiszewski plans to define the particular requirements for live synthetic and hopes to start fielding systems by fiscal year 2022 and feature them in place Army-wide by fiscal year 2025.
In the meantime, the National Simulation Center, or NSC, is having discussions with industry and experts within the science and technology community to “close a number of those gaps” in capability.
Although simulators has been around for many years, the difficulty is that the majority were designed for use in isolation. Live synthetic fuses all of them seamlessly.
There are four basic varieties of simulations in order to have to be fused to make the vision a reality. They go by the acronym LVC-G.
LIVE SIMULATION
First is live simulation, or LS. It is “real people operating real systems within the field,” Janiszewski said. Soldiers was doing this for the reason that dawn of warfare.
Janiszewski said live simulations have improved significantly since he joined the military 26 years ago.
Sounds and scents, mentioned within the setup scenario, have already been added to LS in mock towns on the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif.
Marines at nearby Camp Pendleton are using animatronics of their LS. Animatronics are computer-generated images of folk or perhaps animals that seem to be physically present — some are friendly, some not.
Another improvement is that Soldiers’ movements today could be tracked through radio frequency identifiers attached to their bodies, a quantum leap from The Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System introduced within the 1980s, which didn’t track movement, only hits from weaponry.
Although LS has seen significant improvements, “we’re not there yet,” he said, meaning the military doesn’t have the glasses that will permit using “augmented reality.” Cloud computing capability may also likely play a job during this.
As troops draw down from Afghanistan, increasingly more Soldiers are doing LS at combat training centers and at installations.
Commanders didn’t have plenty of responsibility planning and executing training over the past 12 years of war, because it was done for them, he stated. Now, it’s their responsibility.
Mobile training teams from the CAC are helping them out with this, he said. “When we’re at peace, we’re a military of preparation.”
VIRTUAL SIMULATION
Second is virtual simulation, or VS.
“This is real people operating simulation systems,” he said. “Like your child driving the racing car on the video arcade. The infant believes he’s in an actual vehicle with steering, gas, brakes and a display.”
VS is what most folks call to mind after they reflect on simulation. The military has had them around for many years now: tanks, trucks, helicopters, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and more. Tank crews and aircraft crews operate in separate simulators, but can share a standard picture of the learning exercise.
These systems are already sophisticated with verisimilitude displays, motion, tactile and auditory feedback, he continued, adding that he’s not seen any significant breakthrough in virtual simulation since it’s pretty realistic already.
CONSTRUCTIVE SIMULATION
Third is constructive simulation, or CS. Here is simulated people and kit operating in a simulated environment, he said.
In a standard constructive simulation, operators are taking a look at a pc screen watching contours on a map and icons representing friendlies and enemy, together with their weapons, vehicles, aircraft and materiel. Operators can move objects around using their mouse.
Over the last decades, Janiszewski said CS has gotten more realistic, meaning the representations at the screen are more sophisticated and movements are more precise and toward real time. Also, terrain mapping has gotten more detailed.
Entire, large-scale organizations would be represented this type, and while not as exciting as being in a virtual simulation, it is only as effective, he spoke of.
In fact, Janiszewski said his unit in Germany in 2002 and 2003, rehearsed the Iraq invasion and the roll as much as Baghdad using CS.
The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command uses CS for analytical and experimentation purposes in addition to gaming future scenarios.
GAMING SIMULATION
Fourth is gaming simulation, or GS. It is akin to CS but as opposed to icons and contour lines on a map, the view at the display screen looks real. Bring to mind the well-liked “Call to Duty” or “Halo” games.
Janiszewski said gaming is the simulation that by far has had the foremost advances, especially within the previous few years.
GS is so new, of course, that his office has yet to feature gaming to its current acronym LVC-IA, or Live, Virtual, Constructive-Integrative Architecture, which describes the Army’s current efforts to integrate training systems around the simulations realm. Gaming isn’t yet officially portion of the Army’s simulation syllabus — but he expects it to be soon.
“Gaming is one of the most prevalent and popular capability we have,” he said.
That’s because one, it’s realistic and attractive, two, you don’t want a bulky, expensive piece of kit like a virtual simulator, and 3, there’s a plentiful supply of computers.
FORGING AHEAD
Besides adding gaming to the combo and fusing the four simulations together, there are a number of other challenges to get to live synthetic.
For one, NSC doesn’t have the accreditation that will allow it to function simulations over the SIPRNet, or Secure Internet Protocol Router Network. Obtaining the certification and accreditation “is critical if we wish to train the style we fight,” he said.
A successful SIPRNet workaround for now’s the NSC’s use of something call the worldwide Simulation Capability Network. GSC Net “is a coaching network that permits the NSC to distribute constructive simulations from Fort Leavenworth to home station training locations in support of division and corps training events,” he said.
GSC Net also allows units which are strung out over several states, as is usually the case with the National Guard and Reserve, to take advantage of the present Defense Information Systems Agency operational network, he said.
For example, NSC at Fort Leavenworth recently pushed out a coaching simulation via the GSC Net successfully to Soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C., he said.
Another issue in attending to live synthetic is funding.
“I worry in regards to the budget each day,” he admitted. “I attempt to articulate why we’d like the resources, [and] attempt to show the positive effects [of simulation on] training and readiness of the military.”
Janiszewski said he “doesn’t desire to use the value factor of why we wish to try this, but if truth be told, it’s cheaper to coach in a simulator” than live. As an example, he pointed to a study that showed it cost about $3,500 to fly a true attack helicopter per hour, while an attack helicopter simulator cost around $500.
The cost curve can be lowered by simulating instructors and tutors at the simulators, he said. Scripts or maybe robots could mentor Soldiers doing the tasks. This will shrink at the have to hire more contractors.
Another benefit simulation provides in cost, in addition to time savings, is that simulations could be delivered right to the installation.
“We like to provide the (simulation) environment to Soldiers on the point of need in preference to them coming to a mission training complex,” he said.
That local delivery service is now being tested — with good results so far, Janiszewski said.
Fort Hood, Texas, was the primary to make use of LVC-IA in 2012, he said. Soldiers from a 1st Cavalry Division BCT used the 3 simulation components successfully in a feasibility assessment exercise to make a decision if LVC-IA can be rolled out Army-wide. It wasn’t true “live fusion” as envisioned for the longer term, however it nonetheless demonstrated that the 3 sort of simulation can be used successfully in an exercise.
Then, Soldiers at Fort Drum, N.Y., used CS to coach on logistics while interacting with Soldiers on the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La., who were doing LS. Data was transmitted backwards and forwards live via a mission command information system which gave them a typical operating picture, he said.
Along with Forts Drum and Hood, LVC-IA systems were dropped at Fort Riley, Kan., Fort Stewart, Ga.; Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort Campbell, Ky., and 15 more sites gets deliveries between now and monetary year 2016. The Guard and Reserve may be included in all simulation training, Janiszewski added.
In addition to that effort, it’s standard practice now at combat training centers for Soldiers to make use of CS as element of their leader development program just before going to the live environment. This kind of “progressive training strategy increases proficiency in the course of the follow-on live event,” he noted.
Besides simulation efforts inside the Army, Janiszewski said sister services and allies are sharing simulation ideas and interconnectivity, since “training together is significant for the U.S. sooner or later.”
Janiszewski loves to use a lollipop metaphor when describing his dream and plans for live synthetic. He sees the lollipop having two swirls of other colors. Those colors are the live environment and the simulated, merging as one.
Related Topic Tags