The project brings new challenges to user experience (UX) research as well as concrete research questions.

This year's event featured an inaugural SimYouth program to introduce high school students with an interest in STEM to the rapidly developing field of simulation.

Director Air Force Ranges Darren Manser delivered a talk on Plan Jericho and the role of Live Virtual and Constructive (LVC) training in a fifth generation Air Force during a plenary session at ASC2017.

Used by more than 30 militaries including the ADF, VBS3 is a comprehensive desktop training package based on commercial video game technology, providing a virtual learning environment for land, air and sea training and mission rehearsal applications.

The CAVE leverages virtual reality technology within a structure consisting of 72 large video screens positioned in a 320 degree arrangement.

Innovation-hungry YTEK is a respected Australian engineering firm developing and providing complex technologies, including advanced simulation and training software for Defence.

Given the wide range of assets the RAAF has in play and the limited exercise time they have with international partners, it literally pays to make the most of this training time. EX Black Skies is the simulation effort run by DST Group with industry support to help get RAAF crews ready for EX Pitch Black.

In the lead up to Army’s second Innovation Day, scheduled for October 19 at Canberra’s ADFA campus, ADM spoke to the coordinator of last year’s event to understand what this Army initiative is about.

Defence community members gathered to discuss the current and future state of joint collective training and the advancement of LVC.

The first two of Australia’s Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fighters are now in everyday use for training in the US. The first Australian pilot has already completed flight training and the second is now part way through his course.

Australia’s future defence simulation capability will move from monolithic independent systems to the defence equivalent of plug and play, share realistic “virtual world” modules from a central database repository and may incorporate technology borrowed from the computer gaming industry to provide maximum reality at affordable cost.

A significant increase in the use of simulation is integral to ambitious plans to graduate the first pilots from the ADF’s new Joint Helicopter (JHS) in 2018.

Arguably one of the most skilled professions in the Australian Defence Force is that of the RAN’s Acoustic Warfare Analyst Submariner (AWASM) category.

Will the simulation requirements for Land 400, and its promise to introduce a mounted close combat capability as a major component of the Combined Arms Fighting System (CAFS), meet Army’s aspirations for an all-embracing synthetic environment?

Simulation means different things to different people. Simulation in Defence has always been a many-headed beast. It means different things to different people from full motion flight simulators to decision support with experimentation and modelling technologies, high level single-Service/joint training and everything else in between.

Sixteen years on, SimTecT, Simulation Australia’s annual conference and exhibition, continues to grow in both popularity and breadth, with more than 600 delegates and 50 exhibitor booths gracing this year’s event in Adelaide.