As military theorist, B. H. Liddell Hart, surmised: “The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.” But it’s not impossible. This was made clear at IT²EC where we presented how proven and repeatable cloud-native solutions can deliver real value to the end-user.
This year’s event delivered a busy show floor and a great platform for us to elevate our vision for the future of military training, powered by tried-and-tested metaverse technology.
Spreading the message
The challenges and pain points for delivering next-generation synthetic training in a scalable, interoperable and secure way were spoken off and explored throughout the conference’s sessions and panels. To explain the potential of the cloud, our team was invited to present The Future of Multi-Domain Training and participate in a wider discussion about the metaverse and the industry’s trajectory towards cloud-powered capabilities. The following day,Hadean’s Head of Defence, Nick Brown, took the stage at the DisTec Theatre alongside our Technical Lead, Peter Taylor and VP of Customer Success, Alistair Thorpe, to talk about our collaborative projects with partners including BAE Systems, the UK Ministry of Defence and the British Army CTTP. They were joined by Al Roan, Managing Director at Cervus, who spoke about the importance of transparency in partnerships for innovation in defence.
Delivering at pace
The show also presented the opportunity for Hadean to announce the conclusion of our first direct-to-government engagement with the British Army Collective Training & Transformation Programme.
From July 2022, and over 5 capability demonstrations, our teams were tasked to hit three technical objectives:
1) Integrate legacy and novel simulation systems
2) Aggregate data in real-time
3) Deploy the system in a challenging operating environment
Above all, however, our work was designed to validate the British Army’s approach to using a cloud platform to enable the true potential of the Future Collective Training System (FCTS).
The Hadean platform facilitated the integration of various training systems used by the British Army, allowing capabilities such as 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 work together seamlessly. This integration resulted in the creation of a centralised repository of data, forming a scalable Single Synthetic Environment (SSE). As a result, troops on the ground benefited from improved situational awareness, leading to enhanced training outcomes.
By March 2023, our cloud-native distributed simulation was deployed in the African wilderness alongside the British Army Training Unit, Kenya (BATUK) to evaluate its ability to operate in an isolated and challenging environment with limited infrastructure and connectivity. Off the back of our partnership, Brigadier John Wakelin, Programme Director for CTTP, said: “Hadean has successfully proven the feasibility of the Collective Training Transformation Programme’s Platform Approach to collective training.This approach will support the British Army’s Strategic Objective to modernise and transform Collective Training, by providing the ability to represent the complexity of the contemporary operating environment.”
Looking ahead
With IT²EC 2032 done and dusted we look forward to engaging with the military training and simulation community further at upcoming events. Our next stop is DSET, 5 – 8 June, where our focus will be on catching up with partners and promoting the first Serious Game Showcase & Challenge Europe as the exclusive sponsor of the Best Student Game Award and a member of the SGS&C panel discussion. Building on our recent successes, we look forward to carrying on with our trusted and consistent narrative on the benefits of metaverse technology, as the go-to software for hyperscale enablement in defence.
To discover more about our work with the British Army keep reading here.