In an award that signifies a ground breaking development for the deployment of simulation in British Army service, Thales subsidiary XPI Simulation has won a five year contract from General Dynamics UK, valued at £20 million ($33 million) to supply driver training simulators for the SCOUT Speiclist Vehicle (SV) family of armoured reconnaissance and support vehicles.
The ‘first of breed’ nature of the programme reflects the fact that the British Army has not hitherto made use of a vehicular simulator employing six degrees of freedom in its motion component. XPI is to provide General Dynamics with a total of 28 simulators – both full motion and static devices – which will train drivers on all six variants of the Scout SV family. The ability to develop better driver awareness and familiarity with tracked AFVs is vitally important due to the increasingly complex nature of the vehicles. Simulation will help to develop future generations of SCOUT SV drivers, while allowing for quantitative evaluation of driver aptitude and ensuring that live training in the vehicle is of maximum value.
The UK Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) in 2010 set a target of completing 50% of all training using simulation by 2020 – with the aim of reducing vehicle costs, reducing environmental impact and saving fuel. The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) recently produced a ground-breaking study which showed that driver training with a high-fidelity simulator was as effective as training with a real vehicle.
Simon Skinner, Managing Director of XPI Simulation, said: “This significant contract for XPI Simulation confirms our position as the pre-eminent supplier of driver training simulators in the UK in both the military and civilian domains. Combining XPI’s flexibility and agility with the financial strength and in-depth expertise of Thales provides our customer and the MoD end-user with a professionally delivered innovative solution.”
Peter Hitchcock, Vice President of Avionics at Thales UK, says: “This contract signifies an important step for XPI and Thales as we continue to deliver on our ambitions within the military land training and simulation market. We look forward to working with General Dynamics UK and providing the British Army with a best-in-class training capability for the SCOUT SV.”
The ‘first of breed’ nature of the programme reflects the fact that the British Army has not hitherto made use of a vehicular simulator employing six degrees of freedom in its motion component. XPI is to provide General Dynamics with a total of 28 simulators – both full motion and static devices – which will train drivers on all six variants of the Scout SV family. The ability to develop better driver awareness and familiarity with tracked AFVs is vitally important due to the increasingly complex nature of the vehicles. Simulation will help to develop future generations of SCOUT SV drivers, while allowing for quantitative evaluation of driver aptitude and ensuring that live training in the vehicle is of maximum value.
The UK Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) in 2010 set a target of completing 50% of all training using simulation by 2020 – with the aim of reducing vehicle costs, reducing environmental impact and saving fuel. The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) recently produced a ground-breaking study which showed that driver training with a high-fidelity simulator was as effective as training with a real vehicle.
Simon Skinner, Managing Director of XPI Simulation, said: “This significant contract for XPI Simulation confirms our position as the pre-eminent supplier of driver training simulators in the UK in both the military and civilian domains. Combining XPI’s flexibility and agility with the financial strength and in-depth expertise of Thales provides our customer and the MoD end-user with a professionally delivered innovative solution.”
Peter Hitchcock, Vice President of Avionics at Thales UK, says: “This contract signifies an important step for XPI and Thales as we continue to deliver on our ambitions within the military land training and simulation market. We look forward to working with General Dynamics UK and providing the British Army with a best-in-class training capability for the SCOUT SV.”
Tim Mahon
