SIMULATION SYSTEMS IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA: VIRTUAL TRAINING FOR REAL WORLD READINESS

By Dr Peter Layton,

Senior Correspondent, WA DEFENCE REVIEW &

Defence Writer, WA DEFENCE REVIEW

Military training has traditionally involved personnel conducting field exercises in preparation for possible warfare, however, as the nature of conflict alters, the mechanisms by which training is conducted must also change. Just as computers and the virtual realm have become a part of everyday life, so too has simulation become vital to the Australian Defence Force’s training. In addition to the training and simulation activities that have been initiated by and which support the ADF, there is real potential in Western Australia for leading-edge expertise and technology in the state’s mining and university sectors to flow into Defence training activities and simulation systems.

On the 22 August 2019, Royal Thai Navy Deputy Chief of Staff (Operations) Vice Admiral Gesorn Graisri visited HMAS Collins and the Submarine Training and Systems Centre at HMAS Stirling, Western Australia. The purpose of his visit was to enable discussion on submarine safety systems and logistics management in order to inform Thai submarine capability development. © Department of Defence. Photographer: LSIS Kylie Jagiello.

Perth Simulation Centre has in its repertoire ‘Real’ simulation in 360° dome bridges, integrated with engine rooms, personnel stations, launch and recovery systems and other vessels © Perth Simulation Centre. Photographer: Martin Price.

As per the 2020 Force Structure Plan, the ADF has been striving to maintain its world-class training standards, including through the adoption and ongoing upgrade of simulation technologies. The army, air force and navy have all made simulation a key component of their training programs at their WA facilities. The results speak for themselves.

In WA, the Australian Army has stateof-the-art Weapons Training Simulation Systems (WTSS) installed at Irwin and Campbell Barracks. The WTSS involves soldiers firing battery powered weapons at a three-screened, cinema-sized wall projection, while standing up to 10m away. The weapons are modified laserbased simulations of those used by the army. The simulation includes computer generated targets and scenarios, wind machines and light effects to provide a realistic and dynamic training environment. Instructors are able to play back the exercise to trainees and provide feedback on accuracy and technique. The WTSS allows the indoor replication of live-fire scenarios before trainees experience their first live ammunition shoots on the range.

Under the ‘Hardened & Networked Army’ Enhanced Land Force Phase 3 project, the WTSS was recently upgraded to allow training using 60mm and 81mm mortars, 0.50 calibre heavy machine guns, BlueFire equipped Browning 9mm pistols, and 84mm Carl Gustav anti-tank weapons with new ammunition types. The Bluefire system uses blue-tooth technology to replace older tethered systems and is now also fitted to Australian-made EF-88 assault rifles to make training with them even more true-to-life. Importantly, the Phase 3 project upgrade added collective training to the existing individual marksmanship training capabilities.

There are two simulation systems at RAAF Base Pearce. The first is the simulator for the Hawk Mk127 lead-infighter aircraft used by the RAAF’s 79 Squadron for initial fast jet training. This is a full-mission simulator that includes a high-fidelity replica of the Hawk cockpit surrounded by a 3.4m dome display onto which a synthetic environment is projected. CAE provides the necessary maintenance and support services. This simulator was installed in 2017 as part of a capability program that aimed to keep Hawk training relevant and viable to at least the late 2020s.

The second simulator is the new PC-21 based Pilot Training System now used by the No.2 Flying Training School for advanced flying training of new pilots. This features two flight training devices to reduce the reliance on, and the cost of, aircraft flying hours. The devices include a functional replica of the PC-21’s front cockpit, a dome with a near full fieldof-view visual system and an instructor operator station which incorporates advanced display and control technology to support instructor demonstration, direction and monitoring of training sequences. The system is supported and maintained by Lockheed Martin partnering with Pilatus and Hawker Pacific.

Australia’s largest naval base, HMAS Stirling, has several simulation systems. The most complex is the Collins submarine Platform Training Simulator (PTS) which includes a propulsion control simulator and a submarine control simulator. The PTS is used to provide individual and group training on a range of critical submarine systems, including propulsion, manoeuvring, power conversion, power distribution and auxiliary systems. The PTS first entered service in 1993, but has been continually upgraded to match the evolution of the navy’s six Collins-class submarines. A recent upgrade featured improvements to the computing input/output system, enhanced instructor facilities, an integrated ship control management and monitoring system, audio systems and installation of the latest Thales C2000-X simulation technology. A recording system was also fitted to provide instant replay capability at the trainee consoles

with minimal input from instructors. In the final stage of the upgrade, the Defence Science and Technology Group supported the incorporation of realistic submarine controls and performance models.

The PTS is a large and expensive system. A quite different concept is the Submarine Virtual Walkthrough (known as Boat 7) which offers a first person, 3D model of a Collins class submarine built on a commercial game engine. It allows trainees to learn compartment layouts, equipment locations, and how to undertake safety rounds – the three minimum competencies required of all crew members when joining. Boat 7 has reduced the need to have a real submarine available and has standardised the learning and assessment environment for submariners. Use of such simulations within the initial submariner training process has led to a noticeable increase in the number of those graduating annually.

For the navy’s surface training at HMAS Stirling, a suite of Kongberg K-Sim navigation-ready ship’s bridge simulators have been recently installed. Mimicking highly realistic real-world scenarios, these are used to train bridge teams, and in particular bridge officers, in ship navigation and handling techniques. Such simulators mean training is less constrained by ship availability or weather conditions, reducing the time spent completing qualifications. Importantly, individuals and teams can now safely and regularly rehearse complex, high-risk missions. TERTIARY EDUCATION SECTOR COLLABORATION

Perth has a relatively large tertiary education sector for a city its size. Several providers are deeply connected to Defence activities in WA, especially through the large naval presence and growing naval shipbuilding sector. South Metropolitan TAFE (SM TAFE), Murdoch University, University of Western Australia (UWA) and Edith Cowan University (ECU) all have capabilities important to general or specific education, skills training and simulation.

SM TAFE is the largest trade college in WA and covers a range of defence and shipbuilding related skills in engineering, logistics, naval construction, submarine maintenance, and trades. Much of this is undertaken at SM TAFE’s Naval Base Campus, which opened in 2019 and is co-located with the Australian Government’s Naval Shipbuilding College.

SM TAFE’s maritime training integrates Kongsberg simulator technology, a fleet of three vessels, biological and computing laboratories, along with engineering, seamanship and aquaculture workshops. The college is updating this infrastructure with the installation of a suite of maritime training simulators at their centre in Fremantle. These facilities can be used to deliver maritime short courses and microcredentials to address training requirements as Industry 4.0 technologies are introduced and onboard systems become digitalised. Advanced training offered by these facilities aims to improve operational efficiencies, crew safety and address ship-to-shore connectivity, fuel efficiency and navigation skills. SM TAFE has recently worked with the Sultanate of Oman, Royal Oman Police Coast Guard Division to provide highly specialised maritime training.

SM TAFE has also recently acquired 16 augmented reality welding simulators from Spanish company Soldamatic for the naval base training facility. The simulator uses 3D objects and computer-generated image overlays, creating a safe learning environment for students before they are skilled enough to move into a real workshop. This technology ensures the future defence industry workforce is equipped to manage the rapid scale up of defence and shipbuilding projects.

In the cyber security area SM TAFE has become one of Australia’s leading education providers with an advanced training capability that includes a state-ofthe-art Training Cyber Security Operations Centre (TCSOC) at its Murdoch Campus. The TCSOC provides advanced cyber security training, including opportunities for industry to simulate a range of workplace scenarios.

Adjacent to SM TAFE’s Murdoch Campus, Murdoch University features the Murdoch Virtual Centre for Simulation that uses virtual reality and simulation technology both in the classroom and as the classroom. This spans a range of disciplines including nursing, engineering, IT, gaming, education, business and forensics.

On the other side of the Swan River is UWA, which supports the naval shipbuilding industry with strengths in marine engineering, automation and sensing. UWA has twice won the Defence Science and Technology Group sponsored Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science. UWA recently installed the Control Room Use Simulation Environment (CRUSE)

Australia’s largest naval base, HMAS Stirling, has several simulation systems. The most complex is the Collins submarine Platform Training Simulator (PTS) which includes a propulsion control simulator and a submarine control simulator. The PTS is used to provide individual and group training on a range of critical submarine systems, including propulsion, manoeuvring, power conversion, power distribution and auxiliary systems. The PTS first entered service in 1993, but has been continually upgraded to match the evolution of the navy’s six Collins-class submarines.

to research how people work in submarine control rooms - a particularly stressful While simulation is only a and complex environment. small part of the WA defence CRUSE allows testing of aspects of psychology and sector today, it is well- team dynamics that can established and will continue impact submarine crew team performance, in the context to expand as platform of information sharing, operating costs rise and the need for high-quality training automation and artificial intelligence. North of the Perth CBD, increases. There are obvious ECU features a Health opportunities for mining and Simulation Centre that includes three self-contained tertiary sector simulation simulation suites. Each capabilities to flow into the simulation suite has full recording and interactive defence sector. audio-visual facilities with their own debriefing rooms and observation areas. Simulation suites can be configured to provide appropriate training in a range of different settings, including an operating theatre, emergency department, intensive care and mock ward. The Health Simulation Centre is also active in simulation and immersive digital technology research. INDUSTRY TRAINING & SIMULATION CAPABILITIES

WA is also home to a small but flourishing training and simulation sector that mostly supports general industry, but also has current and potential defence applications. Companies operating in this domain include Calytrix Technologies, ERGT Australia, Citadel Medical, Perth Simulation Centre, HR Wallingford, Broome Maritime Simulation Centre, Immersive Technologies and Sentient.

Calytrix Technologies develops and delivers integrated training that combines live, virtual and constructive simulation environments with subject matter expertise. The company is the prime contractor for the delivery of technical, planning and support services to the Australian Defence Simulation and Training Centre in Canberra. Calytrix recently celebrated 15 years of support to ADF Joint Collective Training through Headquarters Joint Operations Command at Bungendore. Now working with Lockheed Martin Australia and NEC Australia, Calytrix is in the final stages of standing up a 40-person team to help deliver the ADF’s JP9711-1 Core Simulation Capability program. The company will provide personnel to support simulation, C4I integration and technical planning as well as software integrated into the new ADF Simulation Federation.

The firm employs more than 60 full-time staff in Australia and United States with offices in Perth, Canberra, Brisbane, and Orlando, with their software development team mainly resident in Perth. In Orlando, it is partnered with Bohemia Interactive Simulations as a service provider to the US Army’s ‘Games for Training’ simulator. The Orlando office and Perth facilities are now supplying its Titan realworld terrain modelling system further afield to the Austrian armed forces. The system will offer combined arms capabilities with its integration with eSim Games Steel Beast, and an upgrade to an air defence simulator.

ERGT Australia provides specialised safety and emergency training courses to Defence and the offshore and maritime industries at its flagship facility at Jandakot. The Safety Training Centre, the largest of its type in Australia, includes classrooms, a threestorey production platform, raised helideck complete with Sikorsky S-76A helicopter, sea survival pool for Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET) and a state-of-the-art fire ground for firefighting training. In late 2020 an annex was opened at Rous Head in Fremantle to undertake lifeboat training in a purposebuilt facility.

Also combining simulation and training is TraumaSim, a leading global supplier of medicallyaccurate trauma simulation products and moulage (mock injuries) solutions for personnel training and assessment. Their products have been used in over 20,000 casualty simulations with the company selling to the ADF and several Middle Eastern countries. It also recently acquired US company Military Moulage to grow US market sales. Many ADF personnel deploying to the Middle East had TraumaSim training which, because of its extraordinary realism, notably contributed to the quality of in-the-field casualty first response.

Also in the medical domain and providing onsite medical and health services to the mining and construction industry, is Citadel Medical. The company uses leading edge technologies and systems, including tele-medicine to connect in-field paramedics to specialists in Perth. Citadel Medical has its own in-house training facility that uses simulation for medic training. in December 2018, Citadel Medical was awarded the Paramedical Services contract for Rio Tinto’s West Angelas Deposit C & D Project, the first mine with autonomous haulage and drilling, and remote mining operation control. During the pandemic, Citadel has also provided Rio with rapid response COVID-19 screening clinics.

There are also two ship simulation facilities in Perth that, while focussed on civilian needs, have potential naval training value.

The Perth Simulation Centre at Bibra Lake provides high quality training and assessment services, including Australasia’s only Nautical Institute accredited dynamic positioning courses, alongside dedicated offshore topside and subsea crane training, engine room and dynamic positioning maintenance, anchor handling and winch training. The company also offers state-of-the-art digital asset simulation, allowing virtual prototyping, digital twinning and rapid testing in a safe and repeatable environment.

ERGT operates a state-of-the-art training pool with a Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET) module located at Jandakot. © ERGT.

Nearby at Fremantle, HR Wallingford’s simulation centre specialises in all aspects of ship navigation simulation. The five full bridge simulators and single vessel traffic service simulator are used for port design and development projects, and pilot and tug master familiarisation training.

Usefully complementing these various bridge simulators is the North Regional TAFE’s Broome Maritime Simulation Centre (BMSC). This unique facility specialises in maritime simulation services for the research and design phases of new port development, to the operational procedures for existing ports. The facility runs a Transas NTPRO5000 simulator that conforms to International Maritime Organisation Class A standards and is certified by Det Norske Veritas. The Transas system makes the BMSC facility a world-class simulation centre. It consists of two ship bridges, which can be configured as a full mission ship bridge and a tug bridge, or, two tug bridges. The bridges contain real ship controls and gauges as well as additional soft panels and controls on the conning station.

There are also world-leading simulation capabilities within the mining sector. Perth-based digital technology developer Immersive Technologies is the world’s largest supplier of mining equipment simulators and supports major mining operations, mining contractors, training schools and equipment manufacturers in more than 45 countries. Rio Tinto uses simulators developed by Immersive Technologies to up-skill staff in the handling of CAT excavators, dozers and graders. Immersive Technologies Haul Pak driver simulator can mimic fires, rollovers and bench collapses, teaching trainees to deal with crisis situations in a safe and controlled environment.

Also working in WA’s mining sector is Sentient, a software development company specialising in Virtual and Augmented Reality Training, 3D real-time data visualisations and digital twinning. At the Resources Technology Showcase 2021, Sentient highlighted the use of gaming technology to improve mining sector training. Online and virtual reality training packages can help personnel learn processes, familiarise themselves with facilities and equipment, and practise responding to emergency scenarios. Such advanced, leading-edge capabilities have direct applicability to ADF training across air, land, sea and space domains. EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS AHEAD

There are two groups in particular with potential to develop WA’s training simulation space. One is the resources sector, which has its own on-going productivity demands and the capital needed to invest in leading-edge training and simulation technologies. The other is the state government, which is making a determined push to foster innovation in technology in areas such as defence.

The state’s Minister for Defence Industry, Paul Papalia, has noted that, “Western Australia’s worldleading resources industry gives WA unmatched capability among other states to undertake defence projects, with the two sectors having considerable

Murdoch SimLab is an adjusted reality training program using Mursion software. It is designed to allow practical application of specific skillsets and targeted outcomes in a safe, controlled environment for any communication based training. The responses are instantaneous due to ‘human in the loop’ technology produced by an Interactor (actor, role playing, puppeteering specialists) creating a subjective learning experience. © Murdoch University.

Participant of the Air Force Flight Camp for Young Women, Irene Roda, observes trainee pilot of No. 79 Squadron, Pilot Officer Jack Leavesley, operating the Hawk 127 Flight Simulator held at RAAF Base Pearce. © Department of Defence. Photographer: CPL Shanno McCarthy.

WA is also home to a small but flourishing training and simulation sector that mostly supports general industry, but also has current and potential defence applications. Companies operating in this domain include Calytrix Technologies, ERGT Australia, Citadel Medical, Perth Simulation Centre, HR Wallingford, Broome Maritime Simulation Centre, Immersive Technologies and Sentient.

similarities.” Western Australia’s mining sector is now funding considerable work in automating the state’s mines with use of digital technology, including autonomous vehicles. The application of digital technology to these projects commonly involves creating digital twins that have an inherent side benefit of making very realistic models of the equipment and facilities in operation. Such models underpin the sue of digital technology for training and simulation. This approach can be readily transferred to other sectors like Defence to enhance the fidelity of military training, while lowering the cost of acquiring and maintaining simulation systems through gaining economies of scale from widespread use.

Fortescue Metals Group, for example, is expected to become the first mining company to operate a fully autonomous mining fleet from the mid-2020s. Today it has 147 driverless trucks, which have driven some 37m kms without incident. The Fortescue Hive, an integrated operations centre based at the company’s East Perth headquarters, brings together the entire supply chain in a way that delivers enhanced safety, productivity, efficiency and commercial benefits, and which underpins the future use of technology, including artificial intelligence and robotics. Such extensive digitisation at the tactical and at the operational command and control level echoes Defence’s emerging approach to combat operations.

Paralleling and complementing this, Woodside’s FutureLab in Perth, Mia Yellagonga, collaborates with Monash University, UWA and Curtin University on leading edge research into high-end digital technology applications. FutureLab applies a 40:20:40 approach to its innovation process of ‘think big, prototype small, scale fast’ to ensure effort is invested in the right areas to expedite high value ideas into useable outcomes.

Combining the mining sectors experience of extensive automation with such innovation methodologies could move new training and simulation

Perth-based Calytrix Technologies is Australia’s largest sovereign simulation company and delivers virtual reality, augmented reality and dome simulations to the ADF. © Calytrix Technologies.

technologies into Defence use quickly, efficiently and at a large scale, leveraging the state government’s innovation drive. The WA Defence Science Centre’s (DSC) Collaborative Research Grant was established to help drive collaborations between universities, industry and government, and provides seed funding ranging from $50,000 to $150,000. So far almost $2.5m has been allocated to 18 research projects. This program has clear potential to develop innovative training and simulation programs and technology. As the Defence Industry Minister Paul Papalia noted, “Collaboration is key to growing the defence sector in Western Australia… By investing in innovative technologies, we are helping to strengthen WA’s defence industry capabilities, commercialise emerging technologies and diversify the state’s economy.”

On a larger scale, the state government and Curtin University funded WA Data Science Innovation Hub aims to help WA remain up to date in the ongoing digital revolution. The hub is focused on increasing the uptake, education, training and awareness of data science in the state. Simulation systems rely heavily on data to function and the hub could become a key enabling facility for this.

In another initiative, the Australian Automation and Robotics Precinct being built at Neerabup is expected to become a major centre for testing and research into automation, remote operation and robotic systems. A broad range of industries, including mining and resources, defence, oil and gas, agriculture, space, logistics, construction, advanced manufacturing, and the education sector are all expected to use the precinct. This facility will potentially be another enabler of the state’s training and simulation sector. As Lands Minister Tony Buti has stated, the precinct “will provide exciting opportunities for a diverse range of WA industries to collaborate, share skills and expertise, and undertake joint ventures.”

Although it can never be a complete substitute for real-world training there are significant advantages to using simulation. While simulation is only a small part of the WA defence sector today, it is wellestablished and will continue to expand as platform operating costs rise and the need for high-quality training increases. There are obvious opportunities for mining and tertiary sector simulation capabilities to flow into the defence sector. With new opportunities always emerging, such as Defence’s interest in a jointforces battle laboratory for example, it is clear that simulation technology in the west has a promising future.