Virtual Reality Takes Foothold in Battle Management System - Naval Sea Systems Command

DAHLGREN, Va.  –  

In the 1990s, the gaming satellite predicted that virtual world would beryllium wide by 1994. Although this prediction mightiness person been somewhat premature, the past fewer years person genuinely brought a displacement successful the ubiquity of this caller technology. Mostly associated with commercialized products successful this time and age, virtual world (VR) has applications wrong the military’s apical projects and programs including the Battle Management System (BMS) astatine Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren Division.

“BMS is consistently trying to innovate and fig retired what kinds of technologies they tin bring into the main enactment portfolio,” explained BMS metrology and augmented reality/virtual world task pb Mike Weisman. The accelerated onset of commercially disposable headsets successful the caller user marketplace has created a wider avenue for maturation, stability, and predictability. “Generally, erstwhile we usage VR, we look astatine it wrong 3 antithetic types of applications: engineering, training, and tactical purposes.”

In the engineering exertion of VR, Weisman and his squad spell to antithetic locations, scan the environments, and usage the information to make a integer twin, oregon virtual recreation, of the area. The effect is shortened timeline from the archetypal thought to a delivered product.

“Using VR, radical tin enactment connected a headset, locomotion astir the plan and spot however it would really acceptable successful the space, creating an immersive, 3D representation. It enhances the velocity and accuracy of our decorator arsenic they make things,” said Weisman.

As the squad began to integrate the program, the programme sponsor saw a unsocial accidental to instrumentality the programme for relation training. Weisman and his squad created and delivered the 30-millimeter virtual weapon trainer, which allows operators repetition connected the strategy that was not arsenic easy accessible successful the past.

“Now an relation can, astatine a reduced cost, get successful determination and person a afloat one-to-one scaling. They tin locomotion astir a afloat pallet. If they request to look underneath something, they person to crook down. Their bodies larn this musculus representation of wherever everything is,” explained Weisman. “This repetition makes [the system] 2nd quality to them arsenic the existent hardware. By doing repetition, it becomes engrained.”

A large accent is that the virtual trainer is not designed to regenerate the training, but alternatively assistance idiosyncratic who needs other clip connected the system. The 3rd exertion of the strategy falls successful the tactical range. Instead of creating a 3D exemplary retired of sand, the squad created a virtual soil array that allows for easier station ngo analysis.

“The virtual soil array makes it precise casual for idiosyncratic to recognize what happened successful a digestible way,” said Weisman. To amusement however the strategy would enactment successful operation, the squad tied the virtual soil array into vessel and aerial postulation implicit and done the Potomac River Test Range astatine Dahlgren, arsenic good arsenic into the basal camera system. “We person aggregate information sources coming successful from antithetic places to amusement visually, but we’ve besides got a model connected the backend wherever we tin propulsion each this information successful and show it simply together.”

The improvement facet of BMS plays an important relation erstwhile it comes to station ngo analysis. Because the information is timestamped, it tin beryllium fused with the corresponding time, which allows for flexibility and penetration aft a mission.

“BMS has a batch of data, whether it’s from trial events, models oregon semantics,” said Dahlgren Division machine idiosyncratic Brandon Gipson, a specializer successful the backend improvement of the application. “Putting into VR extracts it successful a mode wherever it’s not conscionable ones and zeros, but you tin really spot an inflight way of an craft oregon drone during a trial event.”

With entree to the wide scope of information input from BMS, the squad besides is capable to visualize everything they person collected accusation connected during a scenario, including the authorities of sensors connected the platform, the measured upwind direction, upwind temperature, and ocular tracks.

During a caller sojourn astatine NSWC Dahlgren Division, Deputy for Test and Evaluation Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition Rick Quade experienced the tactical soil array firsthand. Although mostly successful development, the applications for VR successful BMS are increasing exponentially.

“The tactical exertion gives america a bully workspace to effort retired a batch of things and fig retired what works oregon doesn’t work,” said Weisman.