While crewed-vehicle simulation technology is quite mature, the application of immersive simulation technology to infantry skills training is in its relative infancy. At the same time, the need for highly trained infantry, able to make rapid decisions in a complex tactical and cultural environment against an adaptive adversary has never been of greater importance. The goal of the Future Immersive Training Environment (FITE) Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) is to integrate state-of-the-art technologies and assess their operational utility for training rapid decision making at the infantry squad level. This is in furtherance of the vision of creating technology as sophisticated and effective for the unique requirements infantry training as that currently provided to vehicle crews.
This paper describes the challenges encountered in creating the FITE JCTD Individual worn Virtual Environment system. Chief among these challenges is that infantrymen interact with their environment in a much more detailed and subtle way than vehicle crewmen. This requires replicating visual, auditory, haptic, and olfactory elements of the operational environment. Similarly, supporting the intuitive yet complex way infantrymen move through the environment is a challenge. The hardware and software subsystems selected and integrated to create the Individual worn Virtual Environment will be described. These include the means for tracking an individual's head, weapon, and posture, presenting visual cues via a head worn display, providing collective olfactory cues, and providing shot feedback. In addition, challenges in the integration and extension of a powerful game-based virtual environment, as an overall framework for the system will be described.
The use of this system to train U.S. Marine Corps and Army squads was formally evaluated by an independent assessor in Operational Demonstrations held in February and March 2010. Keys lessons from this evaluation as they relate to the underlying technologies will be reported.