The Navy is upgrading its training program for submarine periscope
operators, hoping to avoid accidents such as the 2001 USS Greenville
collision with a Japanese fishing trawler.
Even though the Navy had a training program in place before that
incident, officials are seeking to improve the training that periscope
operators receive before they deploy on U.S. submarines.
One system being used is called the submarine tactical visual training
system. The STVTS is part of a complex submarine multi-mission team
trainer.
NLX Corp., of Sterling, Va., is working under a $5.1 million contract
with the U.S. Navy to design, manufacture and upgrade the STVTS.
The contract for its umbrella program, the submarine multi-mission
team trainer (SMMTT), was awarded to Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics
and Surveillance Systems, in Manassas, Va., which is responsible
for upgrade kits and associated software under the Acoustic Rapid
Commercial Off-The-Shelf Insertion (ARCI) program. ARCI is a sonar
system upgrade installed on U.S. Navy attack boats and nuclear-missile
boomers.
The SMMTT is the team trainer that simulates the ARCI shipboard
environment. Lockheed is expected to complete the work by August
2003. Lockheed’s contract was only for Phase I and II of the
program, a company spokesman said.
NLX will integrate the STVTS device—a periscope trainer—with
the SMMTT over a “high-level architecture interface,”
according Bob Wuestner, NLX’s vice president for business
development. The company will provide new tactical controls and
displays that have a 360-degree field-of-view during periscope operations.
The company is also scheduled to provide updated instructor-operator
stations.
After the USS Greenville accident, Wuestner said, the Navy began
to emphasize the need for 360-degree surveillance, “to do
a visual clearing to make sure if there is something in the immediate
area, just as a precaution measure,” he said.
The trainer provides submariners with a three-dimensional dynamic
sea-state model that can simulate everything from calm seas to raging
storms. It is just as important for submariners to experience the
different effects the environment can have on their missions, as
it is for aviators, Wuestner said.
“The periscope will raise out of the floor,” he explained,
and the three-dimensional sea-state model will give them the same
feel as they would have when looking through an actual periscope.
The STVTS can create an “environment that may be worse than
you will ever see,” said Wuestner. The trainer also has an
image generator for day and night scenarios, in order to “train
the submariners in vision recognition capabilities,” he added.
“Being able to identify targets at night is a challenge.”
The simulator will generate contacts and targets that the students
will have to identify.
The specific scenarios come from databases that feature coast-line
recognition, open-ocean and harbor recognition items.
The STVTS is not what is known as an “immersive training
device,” he cautioned, because it is on a fixed floor and
does not have any form of motion. “But once you look out of
the periscope you will have the sensation of the sea state,”
he said.