MAK’s training systems have been developed in close cooperation with the US Army, Marines, and Air Force and deployed to governments across the globe.

Air Support Operations Center (ASOC) Total Mission Training

What's At Stake?

The ASOC (Air Support Operations Center) Battlefield Simulation fills a crucial gap in USAF and United Kingdom Close Air Support (CAS) and airspace manager training. The system provides six squadrons with the capability to conduct total-mission training events whenever the personnel and time are available.

How MAK Helped

When the 111th ASOS returned from their first deployment to Afghanistan they realized the training available prior to deployment was inadequate. They sought an organic training capability focused on the ASOC mission that was low cost, simple to use, adaptable, and available now. With the assistance of MAK, they developed a complete training system based on MAK’s QuickStrike HLA-based simulation. Through more than two years of spiral development, incorporating lessons learned, the system has matured, and can now realistically replicate the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) in Kabul, Afghanistan, the TOC supporting the mission in Iraq, or can expand to support a major conflict scenario. The training system provides a collaborative workspace for the training audience and exercise control group via integrated software and workstations that can easily adapt to new mission requirements and TOC configurations. The system continues to mature. Based on inputs from the warfighter, new capabilities have been incorporated to add realism and simplify the scenario development process. The QuickStrike simulation can now import TBMCS Air Tasking Order air mission data and can provide air and ground tracks to a common operating picture; presented through either TACP CASS or JADOCS.

Tactical Operations Training – USMC MCTOG

What's At Stake?

The U.S. Marine Corps Tactical Operations Group (MCTOG) uses advanced human simulation, ECO Sim to model blue forces, oppositional forces, and civilian pattern-of-life to train captains two weeks prior to deployment in Afghanistan. ECO Sim trains IED defeat missions simulating sophisticated human networks of financiers, bomb makers, safe houses, leaders, and emplacers. These IED networks operate within a larger backdrop of ambient civilian behavior: farmers in fields, children attending school, families going to marketplaces and religious services. The Marine captain commands searches, patrols, and detentions, all while monitoring the battlefield using ISR data provided by UAS and stationary cameras. In addition, ECO Sim has a sophisticated report capability, mimicking the way Marines will actually convey and receive information in the battlefield.

Have a look at a few of the CST systems that MAK has helped stimulate with constructive simulation.

Wargaming System to Stimulate C4I System – Raytheon IDS

What’s at stake

Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems selected MAK to develop the simulation system to drive the wargaming & training component of their Command View C4I system that was subsequently delivered to a Raytheon customer.

The C4I system is used for national defense and simulated Command Post Exercises at the division, brigade, and battalion levels, providing opportunities for experimentation, doctrine development, and training.

How MAK Helped

MAK used VR-Forces' flexible architecture to develop and deliver a MAK Command and Staff Training System (MAK CST) to stimulate Raytheon’s C4I system. MAK CST acts as the synthetic environment for operational level training exercises — it feeds the C4I system with track data and reports from simulated forces.

Commanders and their staff lay down the Order of Battle and participate in the exercise using the same C4I system they would use in a real-world battle, while members of their organization direct the simulated forces by interacting with MAK CST in the simulation cell.

This two-year project resulted in MAK delivering a fully compliant system, on time, and within budget. Deliveries included documentation, training, comprehensive test procedures, and on-site integration support. The newly developed software has been integrated into the COTS VR-Forces product for ease of maintenance and upgrade. The system includes the VR-TheWorld Streaming Terrain Server.

Dutch Army Command and Staff Trainer using MAK ONE

What's At Stake?

In this use case, the trainees are military commanders who interact with the real C4I interface, which is configured to be in a training mode. Role players contribute to the simulation scenarios. And white-cell operators manage the exercise making sure the scenarios stay on track.

How MAK Helped

Working as a subcontractor to Elbit Systems, MAK delivered a modified version of VR-Forces that was used as the simulation engine for a Command and Staff Trainer for the Dutch Army. VR-Forces is used for scenario authoring, simulation execution, and as a role-player station for white-cell operators and instructors.

VR-Forces-simulated entities, and other objects, are displayed on the C4I system's map. Elbit, the developers of the C4I system, wrote a Gateway application using VR-Link and the VR-Forces Remote Control API that translates between the HLA protocols spoken by VR-Forces, and the C4I protocols used by the operational C4I system.

The Dutch system employs several VR-Forces simulation engines to share the load of simulating several thousand objects.

This project focuses on the tactical level more than the operation level.  For example, it had requirements for 3D views (UAVs camera displays and "pop the hatch" out-the-window views for operators playing the role of company commanders), thus, much of the actual simulation is at the entity level rather than the more constructive true aggregate level.

Air Defense Operations Using MAK ONE for Decision-Making Training

What's At Stake?

Rheinmetall Canada delivered an Air Defense Operations Simulation (ADOS) for the Dutch Army to be used for decision-making training of the staff of the air defense units responsible for Command and Control (C2). The Dutch Army is fielding new Ground Based Air Defense Systems (GBADS) from Rheinmetall and integrating these with Short Range Air Defense (SHORAD) systems, requiring new training systems for tactical decision-making as opposed to purely operation training. The ADOS system is also being used as an aid in the development of air defense Doctrine, Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (DTTP).

How MAK Helped

The training system comprises a simulation network connected to a copy of the operational C2 system.
VR-Forces, MAK’s simulation solution, provides scenario generation and modeling of ground and air threats and blue force including the mobile GBADS. VR-Vantage is used as the primary interface for the role players which include the Stinger Weapon Platform platoons, the Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS) fire units, and opposing forces. 

All positions are connected via the High Level Architecture (HLA) through the MAK High Performance RTI. Students, making up the Staff platoon, are at copies of the operational C2 system. The MAK Data Logger supports After Action Review.

“MAK’s VR-Forces and VR-Vantage combination of providing out-of-the-box capabilities with a powerful API for easy customization made them the ideal choice as the simulation and visualization component of the ADOS System. The technical capabilities of MAK’s products coupled with their excellent reputation for unsurpassed customer support made the decision to team with MAK an easy one,” said Ledin Charles, ADOS Program Manager, Rheinmetall Canada.

DSTO's Air Defense Battle Management with MAK ONE

What's At Stake?

The Air Defence Ground Environment Simulator (ADGESIM) was developed by the Defence, Science and Technology Organization (DSTO) to evolve Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) training systems and prepare personnel for network-centric operations. ADGESIM, a network-centric aerospace battle management application, is a major component of the RAAF strategy to adopt distributed simulation technology.

How MAK Helped

ADGESIM is comprised of three applications developed by DSTO and YTEK (DSTO engineering contractor) in C++ and closely integrated with VR-Forces and VR-Link. The ADGESIM Pilot Interface is used to create and fly simulated aircraft entities. All high-resolution entity modeling is done in the background by VR-Forces and ADGESIM entities have been proven compatible with both Australian and US Navy distributed simulation environments. The RAAF routinely runs scenarios with eight Pilot Interface workstations simultaneously without taxing the PC-based ADGESIM system.

Jon Blacklock, Head, Air Projects Analysis, Air Operations Research Branch of DSTO, explained that “his research program had identified VR-Forces and VR-Link as the only products with a sufficiently open architecture and useable programming interface to support rapid prototyping and development. Using a mixture of MAK’s COTS tools and custom-built “thin client” applications, we were able to create ADGESIM in less than six months, for around half the original budget.”

“VR-Forces’ flexibility secured its place in our development,” said Blacklock. “The ease of customization and the API were among the biggest reasons we chose it. At the start, it lacked a few features on our wish list, but MAK’s outstanding tech support helped us fill in the gaps. During the six-month development, MAK redeveloped its applications and added features in parallel with our development. It is a testament to MAK’s professional approach that when we got the release version of VR Forces, we needed just two weeks prior to installation in the first Regional Operations center. We plugged in our applications and everything just worked.”

Norwegian Defence Research Establishment uses VR-Forces for CST Experimentation

What's At Stake?

The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) has established a demonstrator for experimentation with command and control information system (C2IS) technology. The demonstrator is used for studying middleware, different communication media, legacy information systems, and user interface equipment employed in C2ISs.

How MAK Helped

MAK’s VR-Forces, computer generated forces simulation toolkit is a component of the demonstrator serving as the general framework for rapid development of synthetic environments. It is used for describing the scenario and representing the behavior of most of the entities in the environment. The demonstrator’s flexible and extendable HLA-based synthetic environment supports VR-Forces participation as a federate in the HLA federation, allowing it to exchange data with entities and systems represented in external simulation models.

Naval C3 System Upgrade with VR-Forces

What's At Stake?

When Terma was chosen to upgrade Command, Control, and Communication (C3) systems on the Royal Danish Navy’s Flyvefisken class ships, they started looking for commercial off-the-shelf tools to save development time. They needed products that had the same flexibility they were building into their C-Flex systems.

The C3 systems technology upgrade is based on the new Terma C-Flex platform and incorporates all operational and technical experience from many years of operations of the current C3 systems onboard twenty-one vessels of the Royal Danish Navy. The C-Flex software is a true component-based architecture. The main advantages are flexibility in configuration, reduced test requirements, open to third-party software, and reduced maintenance costs.

How MAK Helped

“We chose MAK products because of their knowledge and experience with HLA,” explained Thorsten N. Hansen project manager. “For scenario generation, we chose their COTS product VR-Forces. VR-Forces is flexible and can easily accommodate special requirements. MAK seems to be serious about making its software highly customizable. We saved a lot of development hours using VR-Forces instead of making our own proprietary scenario generator.”

USAF Networking Simulation to C2 Systems with MAK ONE

What's At Stake?

Large investments have been made in developing simulation systems that model and simulate various aspects of the military environment. Networking these together enables building systems-of-systems that model larger and more complete operational scenarios. Connecting these to operational C2, C3, C4I, and Mission Command systems allows commanders and their staff to have experiential learning opportunities that otherwise could not be achieved outside of actual conflict.  

How MAK Helped

MAK’s VR-Link interoperability toolkit is the de facto industry standard for networking simulations. MAK’s implementation of the HLA run time infrastructure (RTI) has been certified for HLA 1.3 and HLA 1516, and is currently being certified for HLA 1516:2010. The MAK RTI has been used in many federations, some with over a thousand federates and tens of thousands of simulated entities. MAK’s universal translator, VR-Exchange, has been sold as a COTS product since 2005 and was first developed for and used on the US Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) Distributed Test Event 2005 (DTE5) linking live, virtual and constructive simulations for the first time. Since then it has been used on many programs and at many sites to link together live (TENA), virtual (HLA), and constructive (DIS) simulations.

MAK has interfaced Battle Command to operational Command and Control Systems including C2PC, Cursor on Target, and JADOCS for the USMC and USAF. Previously we developed an interface for FBCB2.

The US Air Force selected MAK interoperability products for use on the Air Force Modeling and Simulation Training Toolkit (AFMSTT) program and we have successfully completed delivery. The MAK tools include the new MAK WebLVC Server, VR-Exchange, VR-Link and MAK Data Logger. Based on the Air Force's Air Warfare Simulation (AWSIM) model, the AFMSTT system enables training of senior commanders and staff for joint air warfare and operations. MAK's tools are being used to help migrate the AFMSTT system to a service-oriented architecture based on High Level Architecture (HLA) interoperability and web technologies.