Game Production Services, LLC

GPS White Paper presented at I/ITSEC 2009

A White Paper titled, "Cognitive Air Defense Training System: A Situational Awareness Toolset for Air Defense Instruction" by Curtis Bennett, Jill Brady, and Glyn Anderson of Game Production Services has been was presented at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) 2009.

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ABSTRACT
After two fratricide incidents involving the Patriot Missile System occurred during Operation Iraqi Freedom, investigations suggested low Situational Awareness (SA) among Patriot Radar Operators was a casual factor. Complete and effective SA includes spatial, identity, automation, temporal, and theater awareness, and deficits in any of these areas can prove deadly. This is not the first time SA has featured prominently in reviews of military aviation mishaps.

After reviewing incident evaluations, performing extensive interviews, participating in current ADA training, and placing our system in front of Air Defense Artillery experts, we have developed a new serious-game training system: the Cognitive Air Defense Training System (CAD-TS) Engagement Control Station Simulator (ECS2), currently installed at Fort Bliss, Texas. CAD-TS enables complete SA training by rendering data three ways: "tactical" – emulated radar screen, "operational" – detailed, 3D models interacting in a realistic environment, and "strategic" – icons and flight paths viewed from above the Earth.

We discuss SA for Air Defense, and present CAD-TS as a training system; first with a detailed description of the technology, followed by discussion of how CAD-TS enables education in each dimension of SA. CAD-TS was developed as an extremely versatile tool for instructors, and not extended as a training package with curriculum. We will suggest potential training scenarios throughout the paper, discuss Incident Reviews and Red vs. Blue competitions as training strategies, and take an in-depth look at a scenario case-study showing how radar placement decisions affect Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense.

The system has received positive reviews from both military and civilian sources, and efforts to integrate the system into current Programs of Instruction are underway. However, even without concrete metrics to prove training effectiveness, we feel we have been able to demonstrate the visual-integration tools and interactivity platform necessary to teach full SA to today’s modern soldiers.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Curtis Bennett is a serious game programmer at Game Production Services. He has a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of New Mexico, and regularly teaches courses in game programming and mathematics.

Jill Brady is a serious game programmer at Game Production Services. She has a Master of Science in ComputerScience, specializing in Artificial Intelligence, from the University of California, Riverside. She regularly teaches both entry level and advanced computer science courses.

Glyn Anderson has been creating video games since 1980. He has held executive positions at major game publishing companies, such as Activision, Accolade and Infogrames. Glyn has previously founded and operated two video game development companies in California and Indonesia. Glyn’s current company, Game Production Services, LLC, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, creates Location-based Immersive Virtual Experience (LIVE) Training applications for the military.

I/ITSEC 2009
The Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) promotes cooperation among the Armed Services, Industry, Academia and various Government agencies in pursuit of improved training and education programs, identification of common training issues and development of multiservice programs.Game Production Services doubles Albuquerque office space