Finalists

The ARAIG (As Real As It Gets) suit from Ramp Global Technology scored particularly highly on Feasibility and Viability, with judges recognising the technology’s potential to support other prototypes and applications.

The panel explained: “If the point of simulation is to prepare our troops for what they can expect in an operational setting, ARAIG is an excellent way to engage all of the senses and better prepare military personnel to operate in unfamiliar environments. It offers the opportunity to augment virtual training with physical experiences ranging from haptic feedback to 7.1 surround audio. This will assist defence establishments in attracting the next generation of soldiers, many of whom have grown up in a world dominated by point of view video games.”

Hadean’s Aether Engine received praise for its ability to impact military training on a large scale, especially when combining live, virtual and constructive simulation training.

One judge commented: “Creating high-fidelity, scalable, low-latency and widely-distributed simulations presents many technical challenges. These challenges will become even more apparent as we take these data-intensive simulations out of the lab and bring them to test ranges. Hadean has developed a set of technologies that will support scaling up these types of simulations fully leveraging existing cloud infrastructures. Their client list is very impressive and we think adapting their commercial technology for defence use holds great promise.”

multiSim BV’s aerial refueling simulator provided a compelling product with a clear military use-case built on an innovative and extensible back-end platform.

Judges summarised: “The product addresses a real-world problem in an elegant way that links both the operator of the refueling boom and the pilot of the aircraft to be refueled. What was most impressive though was the powerful combination of DSIM and DWorld back-end platforms upon which the simulator was built. We see significant opportunity for use of this technology as a foundation for other training scenarios in a number of areas.”