The United States Army has been using Virtual Reality to simulate real life situations for a few years now. The importance of Virtual Reality has increased to the point where the Army is considering giving every soldier a digital doppelganger or a helmet that creates virtual training environments. Obviously the cost of providing a unit for each soldier would be immense.
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| Photo: David Kamm, NSRDEC |
James Blake, the Army’s program executive officer for simulation, training and instrumentation says “You design an avatar that has the individual facial features of a soldier. Then you add more of what he looks like, physical attributes. When you’re in your game environment, you’d like to have the physical and mental attributes of that individual reflected in that virtual world.”
Essentially what Mr. Blake is saying is that each avatar can be customized to match each soldier’s physical performance. This would create a virtual environment that limits the soldier to whatever his abilities may be and he can get a better sense of how he can handle a particular environment.
There is always the concern that Virtual Reality can never equate to actual reality, and by giving soldiers an avatar you would essentially be training them to become better virtual soldiers or video game players as opposed to enhance their real life skills. According to Danger Room pal Peter Singer avatars “at some point, piloting a plane in combat is different from piloting a computer workstation. Just as hitting a real tennis ball is not the same as hitting the Wii version.”
Although Virtual Reality can never completely simulate reality, the technology is constantly becoming more and more sophisticated. If the US Army is seriously considering providing each soldier with one of these costly units, we must assume that the technology is good enough to improve army training.
Read original article: Army’s Virtual Reality Plan: A Digital Doppelganger for Every Soldier
Penso que o treino real com situações de guerra tipicas encenadas pelos "Army trainers" deverão ter melhores resultados, já que cada vez mais o "inimigo" desenvolve novas e melhores estratégias de combate. A que se está a passar, neste momento, no Mali pela independencia do Estado Tuaregue Azawad é disso bom exemplo.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it might not be reality, I think that using video simulation can prepare soliders for certain situations in combat. For instance, a solider might become more aware of certain spots the ememy is likely to hide (such as enemy snipers) or might become more aware when it is useful to use certain weapons (like grenades).
ReplyDeleteVideo Stimulation is becoming more and more predominant among children, students, and workers. There may be specific situations where this training is crucial for a soldier,i.e. specific targest shooting, ambush situations, etc. It is crucial for soldiers to be trained in all available defense strategies in order to achieve mission accomplishments as well as survival. Soldiers should be well trained in both disciplines.
ReplyDeleteThe benefits of simulating a combat environment is priceless in preparing a soldier. As a former Marine myself, Ive found that preparation and training is everything. When placed in extremely stressful situations, my experience has been that the individual rarely has the time to process and analyze all the variables, and instead will react in the manner he was last trained. The chance to be placed in such situations in a safe, virtual manner, give the soldier immense confidence in his split-second decision-making abilities and possibly save lives.
ReplyDeleteVirtual reality as a tool for training and examinations has long been used by flight companies, in order to assess their pilots skills during their careers. They due it every six months in flight simulators.
ReplyDeleteHowever soldiers should be trained to kill, which is a very difficult task to perform in real conditions. Maybe they should try with prisoners!
Apart from the initial capital cost, vitual training could reduce the costs of training soldiers. Obviously, there is no substitute for real life training.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the article. Even if virtual training can never be the same as reality, it can provide safer mechanisms and new tools to soldiers, avoiding the collateral damage and the costs that can be caused on real training.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to share a really interesting article I read about how virtual reality saves lives by simulating real life fires in plants. Here's the link in case anyone wants to read it or comment about it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.futuregov.asia/articles/2010/feb/09/virtual-reality-technology-saves-lives/