Training vendors and military organizations are refining their systems offerings and refreshing current equipment to hone rotorcraft training capabilities amid tight budget conditions, as evidenced by activities at the I/ITSEC trade show that wrapped up Dec. 2.
The Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference, as I/ITSEC is called formally, bills itself as the world’s largest modeling, simulation and training conference. Organized by the National Defense Industrial Assn., the show opened Nov. 28 in Orlando, Florida’s Orange County Convention Center
At the show, Rockwell Collins launched a “mixed reality” simulated environment system that the company said will merge a trainee’s real-world view with a synthetic environment. Called Coalescence, the system would incorporate a virtual-reality, head-mounted display with the synthetic environment to support training for air, land and sea domains.
“Today’s customers are looking for comprehensive and integrated training solutions from a single provider, and a solution that offers high cost savings as compared to solely live training,” said Nick Gibbs, vice president and general manager of Rockwell Collins’ Simulation & Training Solutions. “Coalescence is our latest augmented vision environment solution that fully immerses the user into any virtual-reality training scenario.”
Coalescence, which Gibbs said integrates commercial virtual reality headsets “with 50 years of Rockwell Collins’ advanced research and development for simulation and training,” should be available in 2017, with production anticipated in 2018.
In Orlando, Rockwell Collins and Bluedro Training and Simulation Inc. said they have signed a teaming agreement that will allow the companies to bid jointly and provide integrated solutions for military customers. Headquartered in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and Labrador, Canada, Bluedro designs and develops advanced training systems and state-of-the-art simulation products.
At I/ITSEC, CAE launched its next-generation CAE Medallion-6000XR image generator for simulators. The first simulator delivered with the new image generator is scheduled to be a CAE 3000-series helicopter simulator being developed for the Canadian Coast Guard. CAE said that simulator will feature a roll-on/roll-off cockpit design and include cockpits for the Canadian Coast Guard Bell Helicopter 412 and 429.
CAE’s chief technology officer, Marc St. Hilaire, said the Medallion-6000 is used on a range of programs globally, adding that the next-generation Medallion-6000XR “will deliver enhanced capabilities for generating highly immersive and realistic synthetic environments.”
One upgrade on the -6000XR, the company said, is its full support for the Open Geospatial Consortium CDB standard (formerly known as Common Database). This builds on the features and performance of the long-standing Medallion-6000 family of image generators and visual solutions, which were tailored for the military market.
Support of that standard “will facilitate interoperability and better enable integrated mission training,” St. Hilaire said, adding that the -6000XR “will continue to leverage commercial-off-the-shelf graphics processors and includes enhanced features that support the creation of highly realistic, interoperable and immersive synthetic environments.”
In other news at the show, Thales said it had been notified by Switzerland’s federal office for defense procurement, armasuisse, that it has been selected to standardize the full-flight mission simulator for the Airbus Helicopters AS532 Super Puma and make functional upgrades to the multi-purpose twin-engine EC635 simulator.
The simulator standardization includes upgrading the primary flight avionics, radio communications, the digital map, the foward-looking infrared imagery and helmet-mounted display. Functional improvements will also be made to both the AS532 and EC635 simulators, in particular on the instructor station. All updates are to be delivered to the Swiss Air Force in September 2017. That service has been using the Thales simulators since 2012.
Also, Montreal-based Presagis, which specializes in modeling and simulation software, launched its Craft series of customizable simulation platforms. Including Heli Craft and UAV Craft, the company said, they are turnkey helicopter and UAV platforms for researchers and designers seeking high-fidelity aerial simulation solutions (and can be used as well for task and procedures training).
Presagis’ approach to developing the Craft series “allows pilots and payload operators to train for complex tasks and procedures as well as researchers to evaluate and experiment without the usual costs and accessibility constraints of high-end certified simulators,” said Presagis’ head of product management and marketing, Stéphane Blondin.
