Halldale Announces MS&T Awards Finalists, Voting Ends September 20

Outstanding Innovative Product – Medium/Large Business

This award recognizes innovative products that provide enhanced value to the military client’s education, training or human performance domains. Under this award’s broad banner, one medium/large business (50 or more full-time employees) will be recognized. The category includes, but is not limited to products such as:

• Instructional media,
• Education and training devices or components thereof,
• Content development tools,
• Analysis and evaluation tools and methods, and
• Performance support.

The three finalists (medium/large business) are:

Epic Games – Unreal Engine 5

Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) is the most recent version of Epic Games’ game engine, released in early 2022. This free development platform enables developers and creators globally to realize next-generation real-time 3D content and experiences with greater freedom, fidelity, and flexibility. The platform, originally known for its application in gaming, being the development platform used in the creation of 53% of currently announced next-gen games, Unreal has also proven to be successful for simulation and training applications as well, as it offers the ability to quickly incorporate real-world scenarios into actionable training environments in days. As the only major game-engine that offers freely accessible source-code, organizations can develop simulated worlds with ease. Unreal Engine 5 is bringing an unprecedented level of innovation by enabling users to reconcile data accuracy, photorealism and real time applications. UE5 is a revolution for the simulation industry, as many of the features introduced in this release are meant to empower all simulation creators to build innovative solutions faster by leveraging the engine at the core of their solutions.

Link to supplementary information:
www.unrealengine.com/en-US/unreal-engine-5

CAE – VISTA (Virtual ISR Training Application) 

CAE VISTA (Virtual ISR Training Application) is a scalable, highly cost-effective solution that enables C4ISR professionals and other command-and-control operators to conduct targeted training, mission rehearsal, and short-notice assessment of proposed operational plans. The entire Task/Collect/Process/Exploit/Disseminate (TCPED) and Command, Control, Communications, Computers (C4) ISR training audience can create their own scenarios, train to their specific individual or team training objectives, connect with other virtual training systems (air, space, ground, maritime, or cyber), and dramatically increase the flexibility, fidelity, and capacity or their on-the-job and exercise training. CAE investment in developing high-fidelity ISR sensor simulation capability as part of aircraft tactical flight and mission training has enabled the integration of high-fidelity sensor simulation models into mission simulation. Drawing upon both internally developed and commercially available tools, the physics-based virtual environment for tactical training events and the joint/coalition forces and targets that could be represented in simulations were developed. CAE VISTA incorporates a faster-than-real-time M&S capability that enables theater-wide mission level M&S from the seafloor to space in a Multiple Level Security environment.

Link to supplementary information:
www.cae.com/defense-security/what-we-do/training-systems/virtual-intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance-training-application-vista 

Booz Allen Hamilton – Tyndall Digital Twin Project 

The Tyndall Digital Twin is a 1:1 virtual replica of Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB), its infrastructure, landscape, systems, and processes. The Tyndall Digital Twin is

connected and twinned to the real world through internet of things (IoT) sensor feeds, authoritative data sources, and live building information models (BIM). Critical infrastructure, such as military installations, underpin warfighter safety and mission continuity, and must apply the state-of-the art in digital solutions, artificial intelligence, and engineering across the lifecycle – design, construction, maintenance, and operations. The Digital Twin is a massive, interconnected, systems-of-systems covering 6.63 sq.mi. along 10.23 miles of coastline, with over 6.3M sq.ft. of facilities. Replicating Tyndall AFB in the digital world leveraged pioneering techniques in remote sensing technologies, such as drone-mounted and hand-held photogrammetry and LiDAR to recreate engineering-grade infrastructure models. These capabilities are essential to capturing legacy structures to ensure an accurate “as-is state” for the Digital Twin. Unity game engine and Unity Reflect enabled the Tyndall Digital Twin to seamlessly import complex engineering models and make them easily explorable in augmented and virtual reality.

Link to supplementary information:
www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2971380/tyndall-afbs-hololab-debuts-virtual-gateway-to-installation-of-the-future/ 

Outstanding Innovative Product – Small Business

This award recognizes innovative products that provide enhanced value to the military client’s education, training or human performance domains. Under this Award’s broad banner, one small business (a non-subsidiary, independent firm with fewer than 50 full-time employees) will be recognized. The category includes, but is not limited to products such as:

• Instructional media,
• Education and training devices or components thereof,
• Content development tools,
• Analysis and evaluation tools and methods, and
• Performance support.

The three finalists (small business) are:

ZedaSoft – MiLToC role player software 

The United States Air Force Academy opened its Multi-Doman Laboratory (MDL) in September 2021 with the mission to provide an immersive and scalable learning environment in order to furnish future Air and Space Force leaders with a unique and lasting experience in the fundamentals of contemporary warfare and the employment of multi-domain effects in a dynamic joint landscape. As part of the MDL requirements, USAFA challenged ZedaSoft to improve and customize the company’s MiLToC role player software product to provide its cadets with a dynamic assignment capability for air and ground assets. MiLToC software dynamically assigns roles from the constructive entity generator that spring to life in seconds as live fly virtual simulations and allows users to transfer entities from constructive simulations like ASCOT and others to ZedaSoft’s virtual Zuse cockpit simulation. This near-instantaneous transfer puts the cadet in full control of the entity, thereby increasing the realism of the adversary or wingman role in training scenarios. With the addition of the new “Performance on Demand” feature, the performance of the MiLToC entity is more realistically based on parametric data queried from the customer’s database at the time of transfer.

Links to supplementary information:
KRDO Coverage 
www.usafa.edu/academy-expands-capabilities-capacity-with-multi-domain-lab/ 
www.zedasoft.com/product/miltoc/

Conflict Kinetics Corporation – Synthetic Marksmanship Training Systems (SMTS), aka the Gunfighter Gym 

Conflict Kinetics is an industry innovator in human performance optimization – specializing in small arms simulation and featuring in-depth data collection capabilities for the life of the trainee via our Holistic Human Dashboard (HHD). CK’s Synthetic Marksmanship Training Systems (SMTS), aka the Gunfighter Gym (GFG), has proven past performance as a unique solution provider for building individual, team, and larger unit-level capability in lethality, survivability, readiness, decision-making under stress, and situational awareness. Due to CK’s approach to combat marksmanship training, which replicates the physical, ocular and cognitive challenges of combat, the Marine Corps directed Marine Corps Operational Test & Evaluation Activity (MCOTEA), an echelon 1 testing and evaluation authority, to validate the effectiveness of CK’s GFG. MCOTEA key highlights: CK Group finished 116% more lethal than Advanced live-fire group; CK Group emerged ahead of the other groups approximately 96% of the time; CK training is six times more efficient than Live-Fire Training; CK ASALT is a Viable Substitute for Live-Fire Training; and CK Group handled more cognitive load and had better emotional modulation.

Link to supplementary information:
conflictkinetics.com/synthetic-marksmanship-training-systems.html 

Cervus – XCALIBR

XCALIBR’s innovative data capture, analysis and feedback system unlocks significant performance improvements by seamlessly connecting any/all firearms training (dry drills; blank firing; Airsoft; Simunition; static ranges; live firing tactical training, etc.) into a single measurable performance continuum. This “evolve to open” approach extends in-service capabilities, integrates novel systems, and exploits the untapped data they generate. It is a minimally invasive system that, for low physical burden (a mobile phone – three days battery life, wearables, small weapons sensor and exiting targetry – >400g [.8lb]), provides warfighters and trainers with real-time feedback on their live firing performance. It integrates a range of data inputs from weapon and target effects into a central data store, enabling individual and collective feedback. Feedback is provided by the mobile device. It uses commercial or private LTE (long-term evolution) networks to transfer all data but will self-buffer when near the base station if no LTE signal is available. All data is stored for subsequent detailed analysis and can be used for training management and capability development. The system is in development with the UK’s Army and Royal Marines. It is being assessed by the USMC in October 2022 and is entered into US Army Expeditionary Warfare Experiment 23.

Link to supplementary information:
cervus.ai/products-services/xcalibr-marksmanship-analytics/ 

Outstanding Serious Game for Learning – Medium/Large Business

This award recognizes the innovative use of serious gaming technologies to develop effective and efficient education and training and performance support interventions. The purpose of this award is to showcase success stories and acknowledge excellence for medium/large business (50 or more full-time employees) – and recognizing the top company in the category.

The two finalists (medium/large business) are:

Hadean

Hadean has developed a ground-up, patented, distributed computing platform that enables scalability, security and interoperability, driving the metaverse and digital immersive experiences for enterprise, commercial, gaming and defense. Hadean has worked with numerous public and private sector organizations, ranging from BAE Systems to CAE to the UK MoD to launch next-gen groundbreaking solutions to these industries. Hadean’s distributed computing platform provides the foundation to single synthetic environment (SSE) technology for defense customers and industry system integrators. It breaks existing boundaries of performance at scale, which enables customers to deliver the next generation of complex, realistic, high fidelity and multi-layered, multi-disciplinary SSE simulations for wargaming, collective training, situational awareness scenarios, analytics and decision-support modelling. A patented spatial engine ensures off-the-shelf scalability, security and an open architecture model that drives interoperability as a core concept. Customers can, among other outcomes, build complex, realistic, high-fidelity simulation of real-life scenarios. These true digital-twin ‘pattern of life’ (i.e., county/city level simulation) simulations allow multi-domain defense functions (i.e., air, land, maritime, space and cyber) to deliver a coherent gaming-like synthetic training experience of the highest fidelity required to optimize training and force preparation, while optimizing the operational effectiveness.

Link to supplementary information:
hadean.com

Cubic Mission & Performance Solutions

Cubic Mission & Performance Solutions’ Total Learning Platform (TLP) utilizes a uniform and scalable common baseline; the extensibility and reusability of digital content and components enable an enterprise-level approach to training. Creating an ability to deliver solutions to the warfighter in a reduced time by “building it once and using many times” is just one strength of the common baseline approach. Having an ability to repurpose digital content not just for Immersive Virtual Training (IVT) and Interactive Multimedia Instruction (IMI) deliveries, but to also repurpose for multiple platforms that share common subsystems is a very powerful byproduct of the common baseline that is being leveraged today: TLP provides IVT content for programs, including Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Immersive Virtual Ship Environment (IVSE); LCS Mission Bay Trainer; and Surface Training Immersive Gaming and Simulations (STIGS) – one of the key pillars under the US Navy’s Surface Training Advanced Virtual Environment (STAVE) program. A more recent approach is repurposing digital content for ship classes whose subsystems share a great deal of commonality with content that was created for LCS, including the Royal Saudi Naval Forces Multi-Mission Surface Combatant. In the US, the Transit Protection Training System (TPTS) will leverage the STIGS TLP for new navigational immersive environments to support US Coast Guard STAVE trainers.

Link to supplementary information:
www.cubic.com/solutions/training/maritime/total-learning-platform 

Outstanding Serious Game for Learning – Small Business

This award recognizes the innovative use of serious gaming technologies to develop effective and efficient education and training and performance support interventions. The purpose of this award is to showcase success stories and acknowledge excellence for small businesses (a non-subsidiary, independent firm with fewer than 50 full-time employees) – and recognizing the top company.

One small company finalist submitted for affirmation:

Radius Tech Defence Services Ltd. 

Women In Command: Hybrid Threats Rising (WiCHTR) is a first-of-its-kind serious board game that combines military and humanitarian training along with equity, diversity, and inclusion elements. WiCHTR represents a novel approach both to gaming and empowering women. The game introduces the target audience to hybrid warfare (4th Generation warfare) and various decision-making mechanisms of modern warfare. Through two players (RED-BLUE) the game simulates socio-economic, military, and humanitarian consequences with event cards and guides the players through cyber-attacks, psy-ops, anti-terror operations, multi-domain and ISR capabilities, warfare at urban and regional level, etc. WiCHTR presents concepts of strategic communication, influence operations, cyber warfare, multi-domain operations, and urban warfare and introduces them to the players. The players have to be particularly attentive to decision-making, planning, source and action management. The humanitarian aspect was also included to raise awareness and train on the issue of refugees, internally displaced persons and civilian unrest. International and national diplomacy dynamics are included in the game where players can maintain a prestige rate, apply sanctions, and cooperate with international organizations. The game uses the 6D gamification and serious gaming technology framework. Most importantly, it uses mathematical models and forecasting algorithms to create its own models.

Link to supplementary information:
www.314radius.com/defence

Small Business of the Year

This award recognizes exemplary small businesses in the military S&T domain. Our definition of a small business is “a non-subsidiary, independent firm that employs fewer than 50 employees.” An exemplary small business leverages human capital, innovation and agility to grow and meet client needs, while cultivating a growing technical and social influence in the community.

The three finalists are:

Ryan Aerospace 

Ryan Aerospace began when founder Chris Ryan took a helicopter lesson and found it much harder to fly than a fixed-wing aircraft. He asked the instructor if there was a low-cost helicopter simulator he could train on to develop the motor-skills. The instructor said “no, but someone should invent that.” So, Chris did. At his next lesson, he was able to hover, land and take off. The instructor couldn’t believe it and suggested that Chris make a commercial version. So, he again did. His first customer was the UK Royal Air Force. RA has grown significantly in the last few years. Prior to a 2018 US Army contract, RA had attended nearly 50 overseas trade shows and was selling just three to five simulators annually. In 2019, we sold around 50 simulators. In 2020, RA sold approximately 100 simulators. In 2021 (and so far into 2022) RA sold around 200 simulators, showing year-on-year growth in the last three years of around 100%. While RA’s main products leverage the benefits of new virtual reality and mixed reality technologies, the company also has products that use more traditional out-the-window visuals such as screens or multi-projector domes (such as our 206 simulators in Saudi Arabia).

Link to supplementary information:
www.ryanaerospace.com.au

HTX Labs

HTX Labs is a Houston-based commercial software company (35 employees), founded in 2017, on a mission to accelerate the future of learning, delivering XR technology and high-fidelity immersive learning tools to elevate the level of proficiency and preparedness of our next-generation workforce. HTX Labs designed and developed EMPACT, an Immersive Learning Platform, to address the challenges of bringing immersive technologies like augmented, virtual, and mixed reality, collectively referred to as extended reality or XR, to the US DoD and to enterprise customers. EMPACT enables users to rapidly create, learn, and measure cost-effective, secure, and centralized immersive training programs all within high-fidelity, engaging virtual environments. EMPACT’s capabilities allow users to quickly deliver critical training to the point of need. Our core value proposition is to provide the necessary digital infrastructure for workplaces to create, scale, and sustain hyper-realistic, job-specific immersive learning programs efficiently, and deliver these solutions through a rich set of platform modules, low/no-code content tools, and robust data visualization and analytics. HTX Labs’ revenue has consistently and strongly grown for the past 2 years, with year-over-year revenue growth at 164% in 2021, and projected at 80% in 2022 (with significant reinvestment into EMPACT product).

Link to supplementary information:
www.htxlabs.com

Conflict Kinetics Corporation 

Founded in 2006 by President, Brian Stanley, Conflict Kinetics is known as the industry innovator in human performance optimization – specializing in small arms simulation and featuring in-depth data collection for the life of the trainee via our Holistic Human Dashboard (HHD). CK holds five patents and three pending in the methods and processes of optimizing a human being, rooted in decades of pro-sports human performance techniques/trade secrets. We have proven past performance as a unique solution provider for building individual, team and larger unit level capability in lethality, survivability, decision-making under stress and situational awareness for DoD and federal agencies. CK’s approach to simulation is a radical departure from traditional small arms simulation systems. Brian Stanley, former pro-baseball player from a major league baseball family, identified a direct connection between the pro-sports approach to improving athlete and team performance, and the military’s approach to improving individual and unit performance. Like pro-sports, CK’s methods emphasize ocular capability, reaction time, precision under stress, decision-making and are scientifically based, results-driven, and progressive in scope and difficulty. Thus, CK adapted the science of pro-sports methods to marksmanship – from beginner to expert level and developed award-winning electronic training platforms delivered via Synthetic Marksmanship Training Systems (SMTS), aka the Gunfighter Gym.

Link to supplementary information:
http://conflictkinetics.com