To train soldiers to be versatile in conflicts throughout the world, the U.S. military has implemented the Synthetic Training Environment (STE), a unified virtual reality (VR) training environment that lets soldiers practice combat scenarios before they ever step foot in battle.
“As part of our work for the Army under contract for STE, we’re developing a cloud-enabled, massively multiplayer training and simulation environment that uses a common terrain for the entire planet,” Pete Morrison, chief commercial officer for the military simulation software developer Bohemia Interactive Simulations, said in a Digital Trends article. “This would enable the Army to conduct virtual training and complex simulations anywhere on a virtual representation of the Earth. STE will leverage cloud technologies to deliver training to anywhere it’s needed, ensuring a common and high-fidelity whole-Earth terrain representation for a multitude of different simulation systems.”
By using the STE, the U.S. military is able to simulate anywhere on Earth where conflicts may occur, while also allowing them to simulate these scenarios in a variety of training centers, be they on bases or in their own homes – all with the goal of allowing soldiers to handle a variety of dangerous situations safely.
“By using the cloud and a common global terrain,” Morrison said, “It will allow soldiers in-theater to provide updates to the terrain where they’re deployed and let soldiers at home station train in the same virtual environment. [That will let them further] increase their readiness for deployment.”
