Cubic Corp. recently unveiled a $2 million instrumentation system
designed to monitor joint air and ground military training exercises.
It is called the Deployable System for Training and Readiness (DSTAR).
“When soldiers are deployed, it normally is hard to have
field training, because you can’t get the instrumentation
out where they are,” said Philip Fisch, the company’s
director of business development.
Current instrumentation systems monitor ground training or air
combat training, but not both simultaneously. There is no capability
for joint training, said Fisch. “It is designed specifically
for joint training. It is the need that we are trying to fill.”
The technology in DSTAR is not new, he explained. It essentially
combines existing technologies already deployed in training ranges.
“We were stimulated by what happened on September 11,”
said Fisch. “The interest and the need increased significantly.
We would not be surprised to see it shipped overseas by a customer.”
DSTAR can be assembled in a commercial trailer, for easier shipping,
he said.
Three antennas are mounted on the trailer—a Global Positioning
System (GPS) antenna used to track the location of the exercise
participants, another antenna to communicate with the aircraft and
one that connects to the ground vehicles and troops.
The DSTAR software is PC-based. The system incorporates current
technology in air combat maneuvering instrumentation (ACMI), which
is used for live training drills. ACMI systems have been around
for about 30 years.
Another system included in the DSTAR is currently fielded at Nellis
Air Force Base—the ICADS (Individual Combat Aircrew Debrief
System).
For ground combat, DSTAR relies on the MILES system (multiple integrated
laser engagement system) which allows troops to use the weapons
they would use in actual combat, but they shoot laser beams rather
than live ammunition.
With DSTAR, said Fisch, “You can actually see the air targets
on both displays, and ground targets on both displays. And [you]
have the opportunity for ground targets to shoot at aircraft, weapons
simulation, and to record the fact that the aircraft was shot from
a hand-launched missile or from a vehicle, and [to] be able to debrief
at the end of the exercise that you killed that aircraft.”
Current systems can’t do that, he said. “They are stratified:
you either train air-to-air, or ground-to-ground training, a little
bit of air-to-ground training, no ground to air training.”
DSTAR operates in a Windows environment and interfaces with both
analog and digital systems, Fisch said.
At press time, Cubic had not yet sold any DSTAR systems. A prototype
was on display at the 2001 Interservice Industry Training, Simulation
and Education Conference, in Orlando, Fla.