FITE Now: JCTD Tests Under Way

From now through the end of October, Marines at Camp Pendleton, CA, are checking out a U.S. Joint Forces Command interactive training simulation that closely simulates battlefield conditions, according to a JFCOM statement released this morning:

The Future Immersive Training Environment (FITE), one of USJFCOM's joint capability technology demonstrations (JCTD), is a virtual reality-based training system to improve team decision-making skills through realistic scenarios that challenge warfighters to read and react to situations and signals they may encounter on the battlefield.

Jay Reist, FITE's operational manager, said it provides warfighters and their trainers with an immersive training environment that emphasizes complex tactical and decision-making skills, while viewing their stress levels and gauging their reactions to different scenarios.

"FITE demonstrates the art of the possible. It creates a mixed reality capability for squad-level training, working with interactive technologies appropriately within a realistic scenario that has been developed by subject matter experts based on real events seen in an operating environment," Reist said. "The results will be delivered to the services, which will make a determination to include the capabilities into their programs of record."

He called the FITE effort a department-wide undertaking to make warfighters' first firefight no worse than their last simulation.

"From the USJFCOM perspective, we sought to ensure collaboration took place. We have had participation from all the services, the Joint Staff, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), U.S. Special Operations Command, the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, the DoD, industry partners that have been eager to be a part of something like this, and academia that has been studying human performance under stressful conditions and wanted to be involved from the beginning," Reist said.

As Inside the Pentagon reported in April:

The Pentagon is making advances in virtual-reality training featuring avatar representations of troops and simulating the realistic sights and sounds of battle to bolster decision-making skills and the cohesion of units heading to Afghanistan, according to officials involved in the programs.

U.S. Joint Forces Command's Future Immersive Training Environment (FITE) program provides instructors and participants with an interactive realm emphasizing complex tactical and decision-making prowess. The technology manager is the Office of Naval Research.

FITE is a two-year joint capability technology demonstration program supporting the related virtual-reality work of all the services, according to Jay Reist, the program's operational manager. JFCOM has been working on the technology for about 19 months.

Under this initiative, JFCOM is developing a prototype incorporating hardware that consists of an "individually-worn body computer," a helmet-mounted display, a "realistic, replicated weapon system, and an instantaneous feedback vest," Reist told Inside the Pentagon. A software capability providing the "virtual world" allows all training participants to interact with one another, he said.

Once soldiers don the head-mounted display, they see a depiction of the operational environment -- in this case a village in Afghanistan -- that is similar to a high-end video game like Halo or Doom, he explained. It is accompanied by digital people, terrain and buildings.

JFCOM finished the first phase of the program two weeks ago with the help of Marines at Camp Lejeune, NC, and soldiers at Ft. Benning, GA, Reist said. The command is undertaking "detailed planning" this week to prepare for September's next spiral, which is a "facility-based, mixed-reality capability," Reist said.

This second stage will bring in animatronics or robotic characters like Disney World's Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as sophisticated, 3D capabilities, he said. It will be coupled with a live environment featuring "real role players and live entities, all within a full stereo/audio capability . . . [and which have] all the sights and sounds and smells" of a real operation, Reist said. The role players will be projected onto screens as avatars. No live fire will be involved.