Naval simulators designed for training while at sea.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana

The Navy's training systems division expects future growth in the demand for virtual-reality trainers, particularly deployable and embedded devices.

"There is more and more interest and acceptance in using simulation to train people. It is a trend that is not reversing," said Capt. Andy Mohler, head of the Naval Air Systems Command's Training Systems Division, in Orlando, Fla.

With a budget of about $550 million in 2003, the division expects a higher number in 2004, Mohler told National Defense.

As the Navy deploys more often in worldwide operations, he explained, Navair is expecting that the service will fine-tune its requirements for deployable trainers.

Deployability is a "wonderful freebie" that has evolved out of advanced technology, said Mohler. During the past three years, the capability to make trainers smaller and more capable has been "growing by orders of magnitude so things that ran on very large footprint machines, now fit into lap top computers," he said.

With the loss of the live-fire training range on Vieques Island, Mohler's office has been tasked by the Office of the Secretary of Defense's live fire office to prototype the use of modeling and simulation to replicate close air support and naval gunfire.

One of the most useful deployable trainers has been the Virtual At Sea Training system, or VAST, developed by the Office of Naval Research. It is used by gunners to score precisely where the ordnance rounds actually landed. During exercises, the operator fires at the simulation of what they might expect to see in combat, while the ordnance actually lands within an array of buoys in the water. Exercise evaluators, monitoring the target practice on a computer screen, could be either aboard a ship or somewhere ashore.

"They take the pack up kit and put some sonar buoys in the ocean that are instrumented," said Mohler. "That allows them to create a virtual range anywhere in the world, so they can practice naval gunfire."

Another valuable training aid is the Conning Officer Virtual Environment (COVE), for surface warfare officers. The technology is designed to train or refresh the commander's eye in tactically challenging scenarios. A portable COVE unit can be used in the schoolhouse and deployable onboard ships.

The virtual reality technology provides the visual cues used by ship-handlers to perceive distance and movement in a marine environment. Using a helmet-mounted display, the ship-handler is presented a full 360-degree...