What if soldiers could wander around hyper-realistic conflict zones without ever stepping foot in a hostile environment? Well, soon they might be able to.
BAE Systems subsidiary Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim) announced last week that they’ve received Initial Operating Capability (read: seal of approval) for the virtual planning and training tool they’re building with Army Futures Command (AFC).
Eye in the sky: So, how does the system work? According to BISim, drones fly about in the real world collecting imagery and 3D terrain data. That data is then used to build real-time, super-duper-realistic virtual environments deployed within the Synthetic Training Environment Mission Planning Toolkit, or MPT.
In other words, it allows soldiers to do prep and mission planning based on real-world scenarios without, well, being in the real world. The MPT:
- Uses BISim’s Mantle terrain management platform, which the company bills as a scalable and cost-effective tool to map custom terrain.
- Allows soldiers to easily tweak mission plans and run scenarios many times over.
The Game of War: You might be sitting here thinking, “Hey! That sounds a lot like a video game.” You wouldn’t be wrong. BISim actually split off from a video game company a little over a decade ago, before being acquired by BAE. That gaming DNA, however, seems to have stuck around; the goal of the MPT, as with many video games, is to make the virtual environment feel as much like the real world as possible.
On the battlefield: BISim’s MPT is already being used by the Army’s 188th Infantry Brigade, but BISim CPO Pete Morrison has an eye towards expanding way beyond ground combat.
“Significant advancements in our Mantle platform allow this training capability to translate to a broad range of customers, and we look forward to expanding its offerings to the industry,” he said in a statement.