Combat vehicles built with embedded simulators: Stryker, Land Warrior programs push the miniaturization of training devices.

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 halfway 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 technology 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.--Sandra I. Erwin