Bold Steps Forward: Thoughts on I/ITSEC 2018

Last week, I visited the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) in Orlando for the 15th time. I/ITSEC is always a worthwhile experience, but this one was one of the best shows I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of over my career. More than ever, we were able to advance the conversation with both customers and partners, helping us to share ideas for the future of military training.

The theme at this year’s I/ITSEC was “Launching Innovation in Learning: Ready, Set, Disrupt”, and this emphasis on innovation offered the perfect opportunity to demonstrate our recent achievements in ground, air and multi-domain LVC - innovations for which we recently won an award from the National Training and Simulation Association (NTSA).

Here are some of the accomplishments that we highlighted during the conference:

1. New Heights in Air Training

At I/ITSEC we were able to show how—for the first time ever and in tandem with AFRL and NAVAIR—we were able to successfully blend virtual and constructive entities that were indistinguishable from live into the sensor fusion and cockpit displays of live fighter aircraft. This was performed in an NSA-approved and certified Multi-Level Secure (MLS) network, and it was done with a new waveform that was spectrally efficient with competing operational waveforms and LTE, ported to a software-defined radio. We also achieved TRL 7+ while operating in a multi-day large force exercise, demonstrating the maturity and readiness of this new technology.

2. The Full LVC Package

In addition to our accomplishments in the air domain, I/ITSEC also allowed us to demonstrate new innovations in LVC for the ground domain. Together with the US Marine Corps at the Air Ground Combat Center in 29 Palms, we integrated a synthetic wrap called SCOPIC around a live multi-day ground exercise. SCOPIC allows us to integrate virtual and constructive into the live environment, and we were able to do it while also demonstrating a new network ecosystem in a flexible and adaptable LTE network.

3. The Future of Multi-Domain Training

We know that warfighters around the world are focused on the high-end fight, and we must meet their needs by enabling them to train in a multi-domain environment. Cubic Global Defense can now effectively deliver multi-domain air-ground LVC - while we throw around words like “game-changing” and “groundbreaking” a lot, this is truly a capability that will offer unparalleled training experiences to our customers around the world.

As if that weren’t enough, we took it one step further at I/ITSEC by showing how we were able to integrate data analytics, adaptive tutors and visualization to extract significant value from the data generated by training and LVC environments.

Not only are we providing warfighters with new training capabilities, but we’re equipping them with new tools to understand the results and implications of these exercises.

If you can’t tell, I was honored to represent CGD and showcase our accomplishments at I/ITSEC 2018.

With the strength of our team and our partners, I’m confident that we’ll have more bold, disruptive and innovative steps in military training to show off in Orlando in 2019. Will we see you there?