High-speed computers and lifelike digital imagery are energizing
the market for portable combat trainers.
Among the military training programs now incorporating this technology
are the Army’s Stryker combat vehicle and the Land Warrior
soldier-sensor and communications system.
Both programs plan to develop what is known in industry lingo as
“embedded trainers,” or training capabilities that are
built into a combat platform, so they can be used during deployments.
Military leaders and defense program managers generally have embraced
the notion that embedded training systems would be useful to U.S.
forces. They recognize that troops often don’t have access
to training while on duty outside the United States. Installing
training devices onboard vehicles, for example, would help soldiers
sharpen their combat skills during periods of downtime.
The technology, however, has not lived up to the positive spin
associated with embedded training. That is now changing, because
certain key technologies are maturing, said Ross Q. Smith, vice
president of Quantum 3D, a supplier of digital image generators
and other simulation-based technology.
Embedded trainers, said Smith, are a work in progress. “Some
things are virtually impossible with today’s technology, and
other things are very doable.”
In a vehicle like the Stryker, he said, an embedded trainer is
“extremely feasible.” The Stryker is the Army’s
new 19-ton, eight-wheeled armored vehicle. It is built by a partnership
of GM Defense and General Dynamics Land Systems.
The trainer currently in development for the Stryker will allow
crews to conduct precision-gunnery, driver and commander tactical
training in the computers located inside the vehicle, said Smith.
“It’s the same kind of training that you would find
in schoolhouse training,” he added. The military services,
increasingly, “don’t have the luxury of bringing the
crews back to some institutional trainer.” For that reason,
“You want to be able to hone your skills while deployed.”
Quantum 3D, along with Symtran, is one of the subcontractors working
on the Stryker trainer.
About two years ago, both firms worked on an “appended trainer”
for the Canadian Army’s light armored vehicle, which is the
precursor to the Stryker, said Smith. The appended trainer is bolted
on the vehicle, so it’s not quite as portable as the embedded
system.
“The same software that was used in an appended trainer was
brought to the embedded trainer,” he said. “It’s
an evolution of the technology.”
The quality of the graphics and the data processing speed are the
most important attributes that make the trainer realistic and, therefore,
useful, as opposed to a video game, Smith explained.
“The image quality has to have much higher fidelity than
a video game,” he said. “In a video game, you never
shoot anything at 5 km.” In most traditional video games,
“you shoot things that are down the hall from you.”
The concept of image fidelity and precision in a combat trainer
is “very different than a video game,” Smith added.
“In a game, no one’s life is at stake.”
Precision is important when a soldier has to illuminate a target
with a laser and fire a bullet. “In the military, this is
not a laughing matter. If they don’t have the same level of
fidelity in the trainer as the real environment, people will die.”
Factors such as the physics of the device, the collision detection
and whether targets can be acquired at Army-specified ranges, “all
come into play in a real training and simulation environment.”
The reason why it’s taken so long for the technology to get
there, in the embedded world, said Smith, is that these types of
requirements don’t exist in the video game industry.
“In a training system, you want to replicate exactly what
that howitzer can do. ... Distinguish a tank from a school bus,”
he said. “We had to build the image quality that makes for
a positive training experience.
“It’s taken a long time for technology to catch up
to what people envisioned.”
In the Stryker, for example, “The graphics power that we
are delivering, two years ago would have required a system twice
that size, with twice the amount of power and cooling.”
The advent of faster processors in smaller chips has helped move
this technology forward. “Four years ago, there were no notebook
computers with three-dimensional graphics capabilities,” said
Smith. “Now, every notebook computer has some degree of 3-D
graphics capabilities.”
The combination of realistic imagery, lower power demands and smaller
packaging is helping make the case for embedded trainers, even though
they constitute “a very difficult engineering task,”
he said. “To go into mobile environments, we need low power
and small footprint.”
Land Warrior
The Land Warrior trainer is even more demanding than the Stryker,
because the system has to be small and light enough for a soldier
to carry.
The Land Warrior is an infantry modernization program that integrates
the soldier’s weapon, sensors and communications devices,
creating a network among the squad members. The soldier’s
equipment is being designed as if he or she is an individual, complete
weapons platform.
In a combat vehicle, Smith noted, at least there are large power
supplies and generators. The soldier only would have access to batteries.
“With a soldier, you only have whatever they can carry,”
he said. For that reason, the Land Warrior embedded trainer is being
designed for “limited application,” rather than full-fledged
training. The trainer will be employed to teach soldiers how to
use the actual Land Warrior system in an operational environment.
The training system, he said, “is all about trying to use
as much of the actual Land Warrior gear as possible, to provide
the highest fidelity training environment.”
To be sure, the Land Warrior program is still years away from deployment
and has yet to overcome technical hurdles, such as inadequate batteries.
In this project, said Smith, “they are pushing the frontier
of battery technology and low-power computing. It has crazy requirements.”
When it comes to the training devices, he said, “We can’t
build a system that is too heavy or runs out of juice half way into
the mission.” The trainer has to operate “on a fraction
of the power we previously lived on, in a fraction of the space.
It’s a tough, tough engineering problem.”
In this program, Quantum 3D is working with Advanced Interactive
Systems (previously known as Reality by Design Inc). AIS developed
the software that can place the soldier into a simulated environment,
where he can use radios or fight a virtual battle.
The first prototypes of the Land Warrior training systems were
delivered in recent months.
A future upgrade planned for Land Warrior—called the Objective
Force Warrior—will demand much smaller and lighter hardware,
Smith said. Ideally, he said, “we’d like to have an
advanced graphics computer in a box the size of a cigarette pack.”
Most likely, he said, “It’s going to take us a while
to get there.”
By comparison, the existing Land Warrior training system is about
the size of two VHS tapes bolted together.
The demand for embedded trainers, in general, is likely to grow,
said Smith. “Any new program that comes from the Army has
an embedded trainer requirement.”
Other Defense Department projects that might seek embedded trainers
in the years ahead, said Smith, include the Marine Corps advanced
amphibious assault vehicle, scheduled to enter the fleet in 2006.
Embedded trainers also can be retrofit into existing vehicles,
said Smith. His company has been working with United Defense LP
on a built-in trainer for the Army Bradley fighting vehicle. “We’ve
demonstrated that you can retrofit embedded trainers into existing
vehicles,” he said. “That is a huge market.”
Unlike ground combat vehicles, airplanes are not suitable platforms
for embedded trainers, Smith said.
“You can do part-task training—to acquire targets or
fire weapons—but to actually provide flight simulation is
very difficult in the aircraft itself,” he said. “You
can’t really replicate the environment unless you have a projector
system set up to do that.”
Projectors are “big pieces of gear,” not easily transportable,
he noted. Some day, aviators will have some level of embedded training
in head-mounted displays, Smith said. “That’s still
a little ways away.”
Most military flight trainers provide 180-360 degrees of field
of view, with 180 degrees of vertical visibility. That typically
requires nine projectors and nine screens. “You have to replicate
the cockpit. To wheel that around is very difficult.”
Embedded training systems, in the future, could benefit from advances
in graphics technology that inject real-life video feeds from sensors,
for example, into synthetic environments, said Smith.
Blending the real and synthetic worlds is possible today, he said.
“We have the techno-logy to do this.”
The potential applications for military users are numerous, he
added. For instance, sensor information from an infrared or night-vision
camera could be incorporated into a digital map or a three-dimensional
satellite image to create a picture of the battlefield, Smith said.
“You can fuse that sensor information with the synthetic
information and give yourself a virtual display that has the combination
of the real world and the virtual world that comes from the 3-D
imagery.”
In the case of aircraft such as helicopters, fighters, and bombers,
“there is a drive to significantly increase the quantity (and
quality) of synthetic information that is brought into the cockpit,”
he said.
“If a helicopter is flying a low-level daytime mission into
a fog-bound landing zone, prior to the mission, the pilot can load
a geo-specific 3-D database of the target site into the onboard
image generator.” During the mission, the helicopter’s
position and attitude is updated in real time using Global Positioning
System (GPS) data.
At the point where the fog density prevents the aircrew from navigating
visually, they could switch to using a 3-D synthetic environment
that represents the real world around them, he added.
Quantum 3D currently is selling this technology to Boeing and Lockheed
Martin for use in military helicopter programs.