• Saab was one of the companies seen at the DMT exhibition this year at SimTecT. Credit: Saab
    Saab was one of the companies seen at the DMT exhibition this year at SimTecT. Credit: Saab
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SimTecT 2015 brought together more than 800 delegates from as far away as Ecuador to see the state of simulation in Australia.

Philip Smart | Adelaide

The conference, which featured both medical and defence simulation applications, boasted prominent keynote speakers including former US Air Force Chief Scientist Dr. Mica Endsley, recognised for her pioneering work on situation awareness in individuals and teams and effectively integrating human and automated assets.

Dr. Endsley presented a master class on human factors in simulation on Monday afternoon before the official launch of the conference on Tuesday.

IBM’s program manager for Global Serious Games and Gamification, Phaedra Boinidiris was another high profile speaker, presenting on how relevant gaming concepts such as strategy, motivation and design frameworks translate in to effective situation.


"What we are doing is transforming traditional manufacturing to advanced manufacturing and that’s all being done with simulation.”


Centrepiece of the conference’s standing exhibition was the Distributed Mission Training precinct, where 14 simulation companies combined their products and systems in a live simulation mounted on the Defence Training and Experimentation Network (DTEN) local area network through a portal in the exhibition area.

In the scenario, BAE Systems’ Advanced Air Defence Simulator showed how a combined scenario could be linked with other simulators and wider scenarios, while Calytrix demonstrated its ability to simulate degrading radio signals and other radio capabilities.

CSC Australia joined a partial version of the simulator to be fitted as on board trainers in Australia’s ANZAC frigates, while Elbit participated with a Battlefield Management System station representative of systems being delivered to the ADF under Project Land 75.

Calytrix CEO Shawn Parr told ADM that the simulation included a program calculating the cost of using real assets instead of simulation to train in the same scenarios. By the end of the conference it estimated the scenarios exercised would have cost around $132 million to stage in the physical world. He said the Distributed Mission Training (DMT) precinct provided a valuable focus for companies to practically demonstrate their abilities to visiting potential customers.

“What DMT did very neatly was actually get the common interest of both industry, who want to show and promote their capability, and Defence, who are trying to understand how to engage simulation better in training and also with larger projects coming down the road like JP3035,” Parr said to ADM.

“Everyone wants to be part and parcel of that. It really provided a purpose for companies and the Commonwealth to re-engage at a common event with a common purpose, so we saw a much bigger uptake by industry to come along, show their capabilities and have a purpose for showing it. And I think it worked a treat.

“It also gave industry access to a group of technologies, particularly around that interoperability, connecting their simulations up, which they didn’t routinely have.”

Simulation Australia CEO John Stewart said SimTecT 2015 marked something of a coming of age for simulation in both industry and defence, with the technology now recognised as providing value for both operational training and streamlining and developing manufacturing capabilities.

“I think industry has grasped the power of simulation,” he said. “Defence and health have always known it, but I think industry now sees that there’s an opportunity to change the way business is done.

"What we are doing is transforming traditional manufacturing to advanced manufacturing and that’s all being done with simulation.”

Stewart said the comments from overseas visitors were a shot in the arm for the local simulation industry.

“Both Mica and Phaedra said this was the best simulation conference they have ever attended,” he said. “They do all the big simulation shows around the world and for us to get that from them was just incredible.”

Among the household names in simulation in the SimTecT exhibition space, some newcomers were exhibiting for the first time.

Australian company Titan IM was showing its new military simulation software created by mixing the capabilities of gaming and simulation technologies.

Titan creates a “whole world” representation to allow any user to create a new scenario, modify the environment or participate as a virtual entity at any point around the world. By blending previously separate scenarios, it creates a single environment. Shawn Parr of Calytrix lauded the system as an Australian first in simulation.

“You can literally be in space, looking at the entire globe, fly down to 30,000 feet and appear in a jet plane,” he said. “You can see the curvature of the earth, the visuals go all the way.

"And then jump down on to land, walk around, you’ll see the blades of grass on the ground moving, jump in a vehicle and drive around. That solves an enormous number of problems in the virtual and constructive space.”

The technology has already been incorporated in to the Rockwell Collins JTAC trainer, displayed on the exhibition stand.

SimTecT also saw the first Australian showing for Satori Technologies, which has partnered with Indian simulation company Zen Technologies to offer a range of tactical and range simulation systems for Australia.

The Satori/Zen exhibit and DMT Precinct involvement demonstrated a range of simulator systems covering war gaming, small arms, tactical force-on-force systems, UAV missions and vehicle driver simulators and aptitude testers.

“The Satori and ZEN journey has just started in Australia,” Satori Chairman Alan Rankins said to ADM. “We look forward now to learn from our experiences and to follow up with the many new friends we have made to see how they can maximise the impact of our extensive capability and growth in Australia.”

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