Success-Plan Services
Rob Proctor
Some people set their holiday seasons to certain traditional events. For some, Thanksgiving is the kick off of the final stretch to the Winter break. For the MS&T community, we set our calendars a little differently for this time of year. We define it as “before”and “after” I/ITSEC, the annual Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference. Always held the week following Thanksgiving, I/ITSEC, is the traditional supersized year-end culmination of several months’ planning, collaborating, and creating. Sponsored by NDIA’s NTSA, this global event highlights the latest trends in simulation, modeling, and training technology, while bringing together the industry leaders and military experts who are shaping the future of simulation and training technology.
This year’s event showcased a wide variety of papers and tutorials and had over 500 different vendors. Why do we do this? Because over 18,000 attendees from industry, government, military, and academia attended – when that many eyes are going to be reading your paper, attending your tutorial, playing with your demo, or sitting in on your panel, everything needs to be right…from the beginning to the end, or from soup to nuts. And this, in a way, is what RTI provides for system and device interoperability.
This year, RTI’s participation was highly apropos for 2023 attendees who are focused on joint, multi-domain, and coalition exercises, where interoperability is crucial for securely uniting such elements as gaming engines, VR/AR, cloud, and other trending technologies that are redefining the MS&T landscape.
Kicking off I/ITSEC on Monday, RTI presented a Tutorial on Using OMG DDS for Secure Interoperability Between Multiple Distributed LVC Simulators, which was hosted by Rob Proctor, Staff Field Application Engineer at RTI and John Breitenbach, Director of A&D Markets at RTI. This in-depth look at The Object Management Group® (OMG®) Data Distribution Service (DDS™) standard explored how DDS can ensure secure interoperability in distributed Live, Virtual, and Constructive (LVC) simulations. Closely aligned to the current DoD mandate, the tutorial underscored the significance of DDS for implementing a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA), while highlighting the security features that are essential for safeguarding data in sensitive environments.
During the week, RTI powered many of the demos in the vendor booths, and interacted with other technologies in its own booth. A key demonstration was a virtual cockpit experience using RTI Connext as part of a multi-system integration, successfully simulating a FACE™ certifiable solution. This integration included technologies from Unity® game engine, Unreal Engine® , Cesium, Ensco, Simblocks.io, Presagis, Ansys, Google Maps, AWS, Qt Group and Java Script Connector to accurately capture displays, flight path and the surrounding environment. In addition to all of this integration, RTI also partnered with Concurrent-RT and incorporated live data from the Concurrent-RT RedHawk Operating System over to the RTI booth. This popular demo showcased the way that Connext works to increase fidelity in today’s training systems, while supporting the DoD’s vision for data-centricity – using data at speed and scale for operational advantage and increased efficiency.
RTI then wrapped up I/ITSEC on Friday, as Andre Odermatt, Principal Application Engineer at RTI and John Breitenbach presented Using DDS for Distributed Training Simulators, which emphasized the security capabilities of DDS and its seamless integration with gaming engines. RTI provided a live demonstration of how to integrate DDS with Unreal and Unity. This workshop showcased the speed at which DDS can facilitate interoperability, enabling participants to interact with the demonstrations over 5G WAN.
At the conclusion of I/ITSEC 2023, the trends and developments that are influencing the MS&T market became increasingly clear. RTI was once again proud to share its expertise across security, cloud, gaming, and real-time embedded systems for the benefit of industry innovators who need reliable, real-time data flow across diverse applications. This is how the industry is working together to transform tomorrow’s training and simulation environments.
Finally, there is no real rest for the MS&T community as abstracts for papers and tutorials are already due next month. See you next year at I/ITSEC 2024! To learn more about the capabilities RTI offers customers in MS&T, please click here.
About the author:
Rob Proctor is a Staff Field Application Engineer for Real-Time Innovations. He has over 27 years of experience in A&D Embedded Software as a Software Engineer and Field Applications Engineer. Prior to his time as a Field Application Engineer, he developed and implemented real time embedded software at major Aerospace and Defense Corporations. His roles have included developing software and system designs, mission-management and display processing systems. Rob received his BS from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Aerospace Studies and his MS from the University of South Florida in Engineering Management.