I/ITSEC NEWS: Army Aiming To Synchronize STE Capabilities

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ORLANDO, Florida — The Army is looking to industry for ideas to further synchronize and integrate a variety of programs into its Synthetic Training Environment, a service official said Dec. 1.

The goal of the Synthetic Training Environment, or STE, is to “provide a cognitive, collective, multi-echelon training and mission rehearsal capability” across multiple training domains by converging “virtual, constructive and gaming training environments” into a single environment, according to the Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation website.

As individual programs within the STE have been awarded and are under development, the challenge now is to integrate those programs together to form one environment, said PEO STRI’s synthetic environment program manager Col. Nickolas Kioutas during a panel discussion at the National Training and Simulation Association's annual Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference in Orlando. NTSA is an affiliate of the National Defense Industrial Association.

As the office looks to synchronize these modernization efforts, PEO STRI sent out a request for information last month that asked industry “to provide a better understanding of … capabilities, potential sources, and best practices relevant to the implementation of an Enterprise Architecture (EA) enabling STRI Training, Test, & Threat Transformation (ST4) for Modernization Programs.” 

“We've got to have some kind of synchronizing strategy or approach,” Kioutas said. “I don't want to … shape industry’s ideas on what I want. I want original ideas, original thoughts … I want to understand what are the feasible ways to be innovative and smart.”

Responses to the request for information are due Jan. 17, Kioutas said.

“As we get past the [other transaction agreements] — we've kind of proven out some of our prototype — now we've got to look at, well, how do we continue to develop capability, how do we continue to produce capability? How do we integrate and synchronize those, how do we make the STE holistic?” Kioutas said.

For example, the STE will need to leverage capabilities from the Army’s Program Executive Office for Aviation to integrate vehicle flight profiles, Kioutas said.

“When we look at new capabilities coming out — like Future Vertical Lift programs — well, how are they going to do … training?” he said. "They want to do … some cockpit training, but they can't do it all in the cockpit. So, that's got to flow over to the Synthetic Training Environment to synergize it.”

Acquiring capabilities for the STE should not create a “dividing line” between program managers but rather encourage collaboration “so that it's seamless between program lines and project lines,” he said.

“STE is cross-program of record, cross-PM, and even cross-PEO,” he added.

 

Topics: Training and Simulation, Army News