SDS International (SDS) has been awarded a multiyear contract by the US Army Natick Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC), Natick, MA, to enhance the First Person Shooter (FPS) PC-based simulation system Virtual Test Bed (VTB) developed by SDS and NSRDEC under earlier contracts.  

Under this contract, SDS’ Advanced Technologies Division, Orlando FL, will provide human factors and systems engineering support needed to further enhance the ability of the initial FPS-based human/hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test bed to demonstrate system capability and capture technical performance measures for the Soldier Domain Technologies follow-on Army Technologies Objectives (ATOs). The resulting VTB will support the Army’s need for a revolutionary approach to system integration, assessment, and simulation of soldier-system architectures encompassing survivability, mobility, networked communications, collaborative situational awareness, power sources, and networked lethality/fire control.  The VTB’s flexible architecture will support timely infusion of new warfighter capabilities, including unmanned vehicle/sensor systems (air, ground, sea) as they arise during the development cycle.  The VTB will also provide a viable virtual environment fully capable of supporting soldier system hardware/software integration and assessment in realistic, networked virtual environments, thus expediting and improving overall soldier-system development by supplementing testing of actual systems under field conditions with more routine, less costly assessments throughout the development cycle.

AAcuity® Hero-FPS can function as an individual soldier providing the appropriate views (visual, NVG, IR and HUD) and employing a variety of weapons, chem-sticks, lights, etc. while moving throughout-- and interacting with--virtually any distributed exercise composed of live, virtual, and constructive manned/unmanned entities. These robust capabilities make the AAcuity® Hero-FPS and the FPS-VTB excellent choices for research and development, test and evaluation, and training applications in stand-alone and/or distributed environments.