Lucy Walton, Head of Training for BAE Systems’ Air sector, gives an overview of Project OdySSEy, a revolutionary virtual platform at the forefront of the development next generation military training.
Lucy has worked at BAE Systems for more than 15 years having started as an apprentice at the company’s site in Lancashire. In that time, she has visited more than ten countries, worked at RAF Valley, and has even flown in a jet herself.
Training any workforce is no easy feat but doing so for military forces presents additional challenges. For example, with real-world conflict scenarios being difficult to replicate, how can we be sure that military personnel are confident and capable enough to repeat training success in the real world?
There are countless variables and stresses that are very difficult to train for. How can different organisations practice working together collectively, like they would on a real-world battlefield? As the security of the world becomes increasingly complex, having military forces equipped with the skills they need has never been more important.
That’s where BAE Systems’ Project OdySSEy comes into the picture. Project OdySSEy is a highly realistic, cloud-based, single synthetic environment that represents the next generation of military training. So, what sets it apart from the technology used today?
A collaborative, tech-enabled platform
Project OdySSEy is a platform with multiple embedded technologies, creating a ‘digital realm’ for training purposes and beyond. It brings together expertise in simulation, supercomputing, data analytics, augmented and virtual reality and artificial intelligence to provide unpredictable scenarios to the users, simulating what military personnel may find in the real-world.
Think of it like a multi-player computer game where thousands of individuals can plug in from multiple locations and play in a highly realistic virtual environment. The skills which Project OdySSEy are teaching are far from those required to play a game which Xbox and PlayStation users of the world will recognise, but the way it brings individuals together in a virtual world has a lot of similarities.
This innovative digital environment delivers multi domain immersive battlefield simulations, allowing trainees to participate in software-driven scenarios which power highly complex, realistic military exercises. In fact, the simulations are so realistic they use actual software from fighter jets such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, enabling trainees to use real mission software and tactics when taking part in exercises so complex and secure that they could not be replicated in the real world without huge logistical and financial costs. We’re not just constructing a virtual or augmented reality; we’re leveraging extended reality tech to craft a fully immersive experience.
The training is designed to be fully collaborative across the air, land, sea, space and cyber domains, allowing forces to all plug in and train together – much like how they would in real life scenarios. However, by doing so in a virtual world, they are saving millions of pounds which would be incurred in live exercises and hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions.
Collaboration with the best
Beyond drawing upon our own expertise in emerging technologies, we have also drawn from the very best capabilities across different industries. Project OdySSEy is highly inspired by the gaming sector for its immersive synthetic environments, for example, utilising cloud dynamic scaling technology to scale the simulation complexity to as many human and AI players as required.
Project OdySSEy is enabled by our partnerships with a number of leading technology providers and training experts. From BAE Systems’ role as a Lead Systems Integrator (LSI) we collaborate with data analytics provider VRAI, simulation specialists Bohemia Interactive Simulations, Pitch Technologies, PLEXSYS, VR/AR experts Pauley Interactive, Hadean – the supercomputing specialist with the Guinness world record for most concurrent players in an online game, military training specialists D3A Defence and Inzpire.
This allows us to bring together unique capabilities to break new ground and deliver enormous benefits for our customers. Using this next-generation technology we have been able to ‘gamify’ training in a way that engages and motivates younger, digitally native generations.
Data informed training
Beyond providing trainees with the virtual equivalent to ‘frontline experience’, Project OdySSEy also uses monitoring technologies to measure cognitive, visual, and cardiovascular performance. By capturing a wealth of information through diverse data points during each interaction, we can understand a student’s learning process and customise future sessions based upon their specific needs.
By tailoring the training we’re able to make it more individualised and efficient, ensuring participants focus their time where it is most needed. This monitoring and evaluation technology is at the core of what makes our single synthetic environment such a powerful tool.
By assessing the reactions of students alongside the actions they took, we can objectively measure their heart rate, body temperature, and eye movements to understand what the most stressful elements of the scenario were, and when, and at what point, they approach cognitive overload. The same applies to areas which they found easier. If they cruised through then we might want to look at raising the difficulty level, for example.
Not only does this allow us to prioritise the well-being of those in training, but we can also monitor where students were looking for information, enabling us to improve the design of our displays so they are seeing what they need to see, where they want to see it, when they need to see it.
This performance analysis has further ‘gamified’ the training. This is important, as those taking part can consistently try to improve on their performance. We are working alongside a digitally native generation now, where technologies like augmented reality and artificial intelligence are part of their everyday lives, so we need to change our training approach to better reflect students’ everyday experiences and interests.
What next?
We have already successfully demonstrated the proof of concept of Project OdySSEy, now we are building upon our initial merging of the air and land domains with battlespace command capabilities to include additional domains such as maritime and space.
To do so we will continue to leverage our military training expertise in partnership with a range of leading companies that offer relevant technology and expertise so that we can be confident that we are offering the quality of training needed by the forces of tomorrow.
Armed with agility and technical know-how, we are redefining what is possible in the realm of military training to help our customers achieve and maintain mission readiness.
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