Anyone who knows CAE well also knows the company does far, far more than provide state-of-the-art training solutions for the aviation world. The company’s modelling and simulation expertise spreads into all domains, including the land defence environment, as is evidenced by its booth at ITEC 2015 IN Prague this week.
On prominent display is the Common Instructor Operating Station for Precision Gunnery (CIOS-PG), a simulation solution to support direct fire training – though indirect fire disciplines can also be taught using the same technologies.
CIOS-PG is a scalable, flexible and cost-effective solution, originally developed for the UK Ministry of Defence and is based on CAE’s established gunnery training suite of real-time software, linked to a latest generation image generator, terrain database and target models. Based on open source software and therefore easily integrated with both legacy and future equipment and systems, CIOS-PG allows a single instructor to control the training activities of up to six simulated turrets simultaneously.
Already in use for the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle in British service, CAE is showing a version of the CIOS-PG optimised for the Scimitar Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) (CVR-T), for which it is understood the British Army may in the near future be looking for a gunnery training system in place of the project cancelled a couple of years ago. Since the current solution for Warrior is well understood and well liked, and since both vehicles mount the identical RARDEN 30mm weapon system, there could be significant advantages accruing to the adoption of CIOS-PG for CVR-T, should a requirement be forthcoming.
In that it reduces operator workload and lends itself easily to being scaled up or down, according to the specific training requirements, CIOS-PG offers significant potential for use across a broad spectrum of platforms – especially if, as suspected by industry sources, the Ministry of Defence mandates its use for the Warrior CSP programme. In an even more flexible approach – made possible by the use of common standards among other things – the application of the same technologies to driver training is also a strong possibility. CAE proved the concept of being able to integrate driver and gunnery training in the Training Experimental Simulation System (Land) (TESS(L)), run by the Ministry of Defence over the last two years.
On prominent display is the Common Instructor Operating Station for Precision Gunnery (CIOS-PG), a simulation solution to support direct fire training – though indirect fire disciplines can also be taught using the same technologies.
CIOS-PG is a scalable, flexible and cost-effective solution, originally developed for the UK Ministry of Defence and is based on CAE’s established gunnery training suite of real-time software, linked to a latest generation image generator, terrain database and target models. Based on open source software and therefore easily integrated with both legacy and future equipment and systems, CIOS-PG allows a single instructor to control the training activities of up to six simulated turrets simultaneously.
Already in use for the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle in British service, CAE is showing a version of the CIOS-PG optimised for the Scimitar Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) (CVR-T), for which it is understood the British Army may in the near future be looking for a gunnery training system in place of the project cancelled a couple of years ago. Since the current solution for Warrior is well understood and well liked, and since both vehicles mount the identical RARDEN 30mm weapon system, there could be significant advantages accruing to the adoption of CIOS-PG for CVR-T, should a requirement be forthcoming.
In that it reduces operator workload and lends itself easily to being scaled up or down, according to the specific training requirements, CIOS-PG offers significant potential for use across a broad spectrum of platforms – especially if, as suspected by industry sources, the Ministry of Defence mandates its use for the Warrior CSP programme. In an even more flexible approach – made possible by the use of common standards among other things – the application of the same technologies to driver training is also a strong possibility. CAE proved the concept of being able to integrate driver and gunnery training in the Training Experimental Simulation System (Land) (TESS(L)), run by the Ministry of Defence over the last two years.
Tim Mahon