Virtual Metropolis Underpins Emergency Response Trainer.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Army National Guard program

A virtual-reality emergency-response training system--currently being designed for the Army National Guard--could gain wider use within the Defense Department to prepare troops for homeland defense missions.

The system is called the virtual emergency response training simulation (VERTS). It has been in the works for about three years and the plan was to make it available to National Guard and Army Reserve weapons of mass destruction-civil support teams--units that help domestic authorities in responding to terrorist attacks involving nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. The Army plans to make the system available to local first responders-fire, police, emergency medical and HazMat units.

The program initially was managed by the Army Simulation Training and Instrumentation Command, but it was subsequently transferred to the Maneuver Support Center, in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. That post also is home to the U.S. Army Chemical School. The service so far has spent about $4 million on the program.

VERTS currently is "going through the requirements process," said Eddie Nagel, program manager at the Army Maneuver Support Center.

So far, it is only a prototype system, he said. "We don't know when the fielding will take place."

He said the program could be accelerated, given the heightened state of alert in the United States after the September terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. However, Nagel said his office had not been informed by higher authorities about specific plans for speeding up development. "There has to be a decision-making authority, at the OSD [office of the defense secretary] level."

As originally conceived, the Army would produce four VERTS prototypes that would be linked in a distributed learning environment, enabling dispersed units to train together. The program combines conventional classroom training, interactive courses, performance tools, and live, virtual and constructive simulations.

VERTS would provide realistic, virtual, urban environments that can be used in real time by trainees interacting in a free-play scenario using standard PCs and existing networks.

IDA, the Institute for Defense Analyses, is responsible for developing "virtual cities," or realistic models of major U.S. cities for use in the trainer. Last year, for example, a simulation of Los Angeles was used by local law-enforcement officials to prepare security plans for the Democratic National Convention.

One of the virtual-city models developed for VERTS was a digital representation of the World Trade Center garage, which was expected to be targeted again, after the 1993 bombing.

A VERTS suite includes two...