Intelligent Decisions Inc have announced that they will be developing a $57 million system for use by the US Army. The system will be run on Crytek’s CryEngine 3, as seen in Crysis 2, and will be a “fully immersive virtual simulation training program for
soldiers”. The ‘Dismounted Soldier Training System’ will allow the US army to train their troops etc in virtual environment “to increase the quality of instruction and combat preparedness, while at the same time reducing traditional training expenses associated with large-scale instruction facilities.”
The system will record all the movements, actions and decisions of the person using it, they can then go over it and review what happened, in 2D or 3D. The troops will not be using a PC or Xbox however, they will instead have the images fed straight to them via a Helmet Mounted Display (HMD). This display unit not only covers the total field of vision for complete immersion, but also has a head tracker, microphone and speakers built in. The solider is also covered in motion trackers which allow them to move naturally using hand signals etc. Processing all of this information is a computer backpack which allows the soldiers avatar to move and act exactly as the real-life counterpart. Physical replicas of weapons are given to each person, which is fitted with a joystick allowing data to be collected on the weapons use, positioning, firing etc.
Each solider has an area no less that 10x10ft, the surface of which is covered by a pressure sensitive pad. This allows each member of the troops to move together in the simulation, but separate and freely in the real environment.
Virtual characters can be added to the scenario, allowing for realistic situations involving civilians, enemies and other troops.
No timeframe for all this appears to be given but all in all, we appear to be one step closer to the holodeck!
Find more details here:
Press release
DSTS factsheet
AliceInGamerland 