As the dust settles following our trip to Kenya, we take a step back and zoom out to reflect on what was achieved during our deployment with the British Army Collective Training Transformation Programme (CTTP) and consider the key learnings we took from the exercise.
From July 2022, and over 5 capability demonstrations, our teams were tasked to hit three technical objectives: 1) Integrate legacy and novel simulations systems 2) Aggregate data in real-time, and 3) Deploy the system in a challenging operating environment. Above all, however, our work was designed to validate their approach to using a cloud platform to enable to true potential of the Future Collective Training System (FCTS).
By rapidly integrating in-service British Army training systems, the Hadean platform enabled capabilities like the experimental dismounted situational awareness system, Tactical Assault Kit (TAK), Ravenswood’s Tactical Engagement Simulation (TES) and Cubic’s synthetic wrap system, SCOPIC, to connect and interoperate. This generated a centralised version of all the data to create a scalable Single Synthetic Environment (SSE) which enhanced the situational awareness of troops on the ground and helped deliver better training outcomes.
Data management and understanding data exploitation opportunities were important elements of the exercise and a critical requirement of our project. This involved dynamic data management to enable systems to interoperate and overcome network bottlenecks, as well as provide real-time data collection and analysis for after action review and further exploitation and re-use. Enabled by a 4G network, and using Bohemia’s VBS4, our metaverse technology was also able to visualise the training data for observers based in Army HQ in the UK, demonstrating the platform’s capability to distribute the simulation’s data in real-time.
Finally, the platform demonstrated its resilience to harsh environmental conditions as it was successfully deployed and operated in the African wilderness. Simultaneously, using the same 4G network, a live demo was delivered to the CTTP team in Andover, UK. In fact, learnings from the exercise showed that the network does not have to be particularly strong as the Platform’s ability to manage data based in spite of infrastructure bandwidth limitations ensures optimal performance and user experience.
Closely supporting our British Army partners and working alongside the Independent Evaluation Partner (IEP), provided by Morshead Consulting and Pitch Technologies, throughout the project was critical as we worked to demonstrate and validate the role of the cloud-distributed platform approach for delivering next-generation collective training. With the objectives set by the customer complete, the learnings and outcomes of our mission will inform the requirements of FCTS and help further develop multi-domain integration for the Armed Forces.