Military Training Simulations: Metaverse

In the recent year, since Meta’s announcement, a myriad of other players have announced their intention to create tools that will facilitate the oncoming of a metaverse from gaming companies to software giants and social media companies. The defense industry has not been immune to this sudden surge of enthusiasm, with the metaverse becoming one of the newest buzzwords among youth. The metaverse is already slated to be one of the core themes of numerous defense conferences.

The US military has been developing virtual worlds for the purpose of training since the 1980s when it first created SIMNET, an extensive simulator network for collective training and mission rehearsal. In the last two decades, standards like Distributed Interactive Simulation and High-Level Architecture have facilitated the integration of disparate training simulations, allowing users to experience virtual combat within one synthetic space.

In 1999 Britain also developed the UK MoD, which defined synthetic environments as linking “a combination of models, simulations, people and real equipment into a common representation of the world providing consistency and concurrency across previously discrete activities.” The British Army has been investigating the use of XR technology at scale, with over 30 soldiers in the virtual training scenario. The ambitious project to simulate the whole battlespace is the UK MoDs Single Synthetic Environment (SSE), inspired by Improbable’s SpatialOS technology aiming to harness technological advances in gaming and the Internet. It recognizes that the world has become increasingly more interconnected and data-driven, and it is thus more challenging for decision-makers to understand, visualize and respond quickly.

Indian Army will also train its soldiers in Metaverse enabled wargaming. The Virtual reality wargames are powered by Artificial Intelligence, and the first of its kind simulation-based training center WARDEC will be established in a military zone in New Delhi.

It refers to the Wargame Research and Development Centre. Indian Army has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU) in Gandhinagar to develop WARDEC. The University comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Government of Gujarat. RRU will develop WARDEC along with Tech giant Tech Mahindra.

The WARDEC will enable hands-on training for soldiers to test their strategies and develop a Wargame simulation through Metaverse-enabled gameplay. The Simulation and Wargame models will be designed to get battle-ready at any moment of time and conduct counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations efficiently. It will also provide hands-on training to soldiers to test their strategies and develop a Wargame simulation through “Metaverse-enabled gameplay.” The Simulation and Wargame models will be designed to get battle-ready at any moment of time and conduct counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations efficiently.

Groundwork

Metaverse-centric ideas are already afloat on many oncoming military systems. The high-tech helmet for the F-35 jets includes an augmented reality display that shows telemetry data and target information on top of video footage from around the aircraft. The US Army announced that it would be willing to pay Microsoft up to $22 billion for developing a version of its HoloLens augmented reality system for warfighters, known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS).

VR and AR have become integrated aspects of training for the US military in recent times. In 2014, the Office of Naval Research and the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California developed Project BlueShark. This system allowed sailors to drive vessels and collaborate in a virtual environment. Also, Project Avenger is now used for training US Navy pilots. The US Air Force is using VR to teach pilots about managing aircraft and missions. VR is also used to help treat veterans with chronic pain and post-traumatic stress as a rehabilitation system. Boeing has created an AR environment that helps mechanics practice working on planes before stepping aboard a real one which increases their efficiency in real-time.

The AR technology developed by Red6 was used to pit a real fighter pilot against an aircraft controlled by an AI algorithm developed as part of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) AI dogfighting project. The AI top gun, created by another startup called EpiSci, learned how to outmaneuver and outgun an opponent through a process of trial and error. The AI pilot eventually developed superhuman skills and was able to beat its human opponent every time.

Conclusion

Even though the individual efforts may be lacking but globally, the groundstone for a fully functioning real Metaverse has been laid. Many companies like Red-6, DARPA, Boeing, Oculus, Anduril, EpiSci, and many others, including Tech-giants like Microsoft and Facebook (now Meta), are helping to charter a way to the bigger goals via small but rigorous innovation.