Synthetic soldiers [military training simulators]

Training individual soldiers or crews with stand-alone equipment simulators has been enormously successful for many years. Eventually technology was developed to allow soldiers in several simulators to be linked in a shared virtual battlefield. Most recently, as equipment simulation grows into a mature field, technology has taken the next step: providing armies of virtual soldiers, otherwise known as computer generated force (CGF) systems. Many nations have incorporated various levels of simulation in training. The US military, however, makes the most use of virtual environments. Each service-Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force-uses the same simulation protocol, distributed interactive simulation (DIS). Simulation between services is still not seamless, a result of their different simulation needs. However, as the Gulf War demonstrated, battle is increasingly becoming a joint effort. This paper describes how, in response, in 1996 the US military began work on the Joint Simulation System to create a single distributed virtual environment for joint training of all four armed services