TRAINING FOR THE FUTURE
BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER While the name of the program seems to emphasize individual simulation units, its overarching purpose was to bring together thousands of individuals and teams virtually in real time. Central to DIS was the idea of interoperable standards and protocol, allowing each community—“trainer, tester, developer and acqui- sitioner”—to use the others’ concepts and products, Maj. David W. Vaden wrote in “Vision for the Next Decade.”
Te article explained that “distributed” referred to geographically separated simulations networked together to create a synthetic environment; “interactive” to different simulations linked elec- tronically to act together and upon each other; and “simulation” to three categories—live, virtual and constructive. Live simu- lations involved real people and equipment; virtual referred to manned simulators; and constructive referred to war games and models, with or without human interaction. Sound familiar?
DIS has much in common with STE. Both provide training and mission rehearsal capability to the operational and institutional sides of the Army (i.e., Soldiers and civilians). Tey even share the same training philosophy: to reduce support requirements, increase realism and help deliver capabilities to the warfighter faster.
Users of STE will train with live participants and computer simu- lations, with some units training remotely. However, STE takes virtual reality training to a new level altogether by incorporating advances in artificial intelligence, big data analysis and three- dimensional terrain representation.
Current training simulations are based on technologies from the 1980s and ’90s that can’t replicate the complex operational envi- ronment Soldiers will fight in. Tey operate on closed, restrictive networks, are facilities-based and have high overhead costs for personnel, Maj. Gen. Maria R. Gervais, commanding general for the U.S. Army Combined Arms Training Center and direc- tor of the STE Cross-Functional Team, said in an August 2018 article, “Te Synthetic Training Environment Revolutionizes Sustainment Training.” Tose older technologies also can’t support electronic warfare, cyberspace and megacities, the arti- cle explained. For example, Soldiers in the 1990s could conduct training using computers and physical simulators—like the ones showcased in Charles Burdick, Jorge Cadiz and Gordon Sayre’s 1993 “Industry Applications of Distributed Interactive Simula- tion” article in the Army RD&A Bulletin—but the training was limited to a single facility and only a few networked groups; the technology wasn’t yet able to support worldwide training with
146 Army AL&T Magazine January-March 2019
multiple groups of users in real time, like the Army proposes to do with the STE.
Gervais presented a promotional video during “Warriors Corner #13: Synthetic Training Environment Cross-Functional Team Update,” which said the STE will provide intuitive and immersive capabilities to keep pace with the changing operational environ- ment. Te STE is a Soldier lethality modernization priority of the U.S. Army Futures Command.
“With the STE, commanders will conduct tough, realistic train- ing at home stations, the combat training centers and at deployed locations. Te STE will increase readiness through repetition, multi-echelon, multidomain, combined arms maneuver and mission command training. And most importantly, the STE will train Soldiers for where they will fight,” said Gen. Robert B. Abrams, then-commanding general of U.S. Army Forces Command, in the same video. Abrams is now commander of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea. Today, simulations in the integrated training envi- ronment do not provide the realism, interoperability, affordability and availability necessary for the breadth of training that the Army envisions for the future. Te STE will be able to do all that—it will be flexible, affordable and available at the point of need.
“Tis video helps us get to shared understanding, and also aware- ness of what we’re trying to achieve with the synthetic training environment,” Gervais said during the AUSA presentation. “But it also allows us to understand the challenges that we’re going to face as we try to deliver this.”
CHALLENGES AHEAD
“We don’t have the right training capability to set the exercises up,” said Mike Enloe, chief engineer for the STE Cross-Functional Team, during the presentation. “What I mean by that is that it takes more time to set up the systems that are disparate to talk to each other, to get the terrains together, than it does to actu- ally have the exercise go.”
Te Army’s One World Terrain, a 3D database launched in 2013 that collects, processes, stores and executes global terrain simula- tions, has been the “Achilles’ heel” of STE from the start, Enloe said. Te Army lacks well-formed 3D terrain data and there- fore the ability to run different echelons of training to respond to the threat. Te database is still being developed as part of the STE, and what the Army needs most “right now from industry is content … we need a lot of 3D content and rapid ways to get
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