STRATCOM wants to tap commercial gaming technology

U.S. Strategic Command wants to leverage the commercial gaming industry to bolster the Defense Department's electromagnetic spectrum capabilities.

STRATCOM’s Nuclear Command, Control and Communications Enterprise Center, or NEC, would use the expertise of commercial gaming companies to “promote innovative solutions, tools, capabilities or a combination thereof for the advancement of future DOD electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) modeling, simulation and analysis,” according to a request for information released today.

The goal would be to enhance the use of information and electronic warfare in campaign- and mission-level models as well as rapidly update “aging” modeling and simulation tools, the post states.

By using state-of-the-art gaming technology, STRATCOM would plan to demonstrate developing systems such as planes, tanks, ships and satellites with “realistic EMS characteristics and physical attributes,” reducing scenario development time, providing real-time simulation feedback, visualizing the EMS operating environment, using role-based access to train less experienced modeling and simulation users, seeing quickly the result of parameter decisions made by an operator and simplifying the user interactions with different connected tools, among other demonstrations.

Other DOD offices have also signaled their interest in using video gaming technology to advance their missions.

Space Force Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Lisa Costa said video game interfaces are designed to help players quickly access and visualize information and data, which could be more useful to guardians than simply reading words on a screen or page.

Gaming interfaces are already intuitive to most new recruits or employees, she said, so there wouldn’t be a steep learning curve to incorporate it.

The Missile Defense Agency also said early last year that it would tap into video game innovations for its Command and Control, Battle Management and Communications system, or C2BMC. MDA wants to create a new C2BMC Planner to allow different commands to better collaboratively plan, coordinate and optimize high-demand missile defense assets.