The Royal Navy's £108m Maritime Composite
Training System is set to revolutionise naval training in the UK. Chris
Lo speaks to Jeremy Tuck, head of maritime training services at MCTS
developer BAE Systems, about the system's capabilities and its potential
for the future.
The introduction of a new generation of warships is
transforming modern navies into versatile, networked and deadly fighting
forces. The challenge for today's training programmes is to ensure crew
members are able to capitalise on their vessels' combat potential.
The
UK's Royal Navy is no exception. With the introduction of advanced Type
45 anti-air destroyers, as well as the ongoing development of the Type
26 frigate and two Queen Elizabeth-Class supercarriers, the RN is
remodelling its fleet around the concept of the Versatile Maritime
Force, with a new wave of versatile maritime training to bring personnel
up to speed.
This
training upgrade comes in the form of the BAE Systems-developed
maritime composite training system (MCTS), a £108m software-based
simulated training system which the RN is describing as "the most
radical change to its training for more than 40 years".
Officially
launched at Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth and the Maritime Warfare
School in Hampshire in December 2011, MCTS is intended to be a
future-proofed training system to guide trainees through the operation
of the RN's latest vessels, as well as its older platforms.
Commodore
Tim Lowe of the Maritime Warfare School lauded the system on its
launch. "Today, with MCTS, we have moved to the next stage and certainly
in our training delivery we have the ability to train, deliver and
employ maritime effect in a far better and a far more effective way than
we have ever done before," he said.
Versatile fleet, flexible training
The
origins of MCTS stems from the RN's need to move away from its older
simulated training system, three simulators that recreated the equipment
and operating environments of Type 22, Type 23 and Type 42 vessels
respectively. As BAE Mission Systems head of maritime training Jeremy
Tuck explained, these simulators were rapidly becoming obsolete, along
with the naval platforms they were designed to mimick.
"Some of
those were older platforms going out of service in due course, so they
needed a solution for the new Type 45 destroyers coming through," he
said.
"They also recognised that it wasn't just a new platform
type, there was new equipment coming through, and they would either have
to do potentially expensive upgrades to those legacy solutions, or if
they got a new training solution they could put those new equipments
into that."
So MCTS was partly commissioned to make sure the navy
would be prepared to train crews for its latest generation of warships,
but it also represents a concerted move away from bespoke, inflexible
hardware and towards the reconfigurability of a complete software-based
system. The flexibility of running operational software-based
simulations on standard PC systems supports the RN's re-organisation of
its naval training regime to increase efficiency and versatility.
Customisable courses
Instead
of students having to be immediately funnelled into specific
specialisms for different vessels, MCTS can be used to train all
recruits in generic, across-the-board skills like electronic warfare
before streaming them into defined paths. This flexibility extends to
simulated training as a whole, which now takes place in completely
customisable rooms that can host simulations of almost any scenario with
any number of students.
"In
the past, they could only come in, fill a complete simulated ops room
of one of those three platforms [Types 22, 23 and 42] and run that
platform to do some exercises," said Tuck. "As part of the flexibility
of MCTS, they can now come in with a full team, which we call a Platform
Warfare Team, or they can bring in their little sub-teams and play a
sub-surface scenario, for instance.
"These are reconfigurable
rooms, we can operate a whole room, half a room or a quarter of a room.
We can set up a complete ship, or just the sonar part of the ship, for
example. We can also set up multiple ships of the same type, which they
didn't have before. Now if they want to have four or five Type 45s all
in the same scenario, acting with each other, we can do that."
MCTS
is not designed with only one vessel in mind; it currently incorporates
23 simulated combat systems and can easily be updated with more in the
future. As the system is based on modular, commercial off-the-shelf
(COTS) software, switching between different simulation set-ups is much
quicker and simpler. "You can turn it on in the morning and it looks
like a Type 45, then turn it on in the afternoon and it looks like a
Type 23," said Tuck.
From a maintenance perspective, using a COTS
setup has a number of distinct advantages. Firstly, MCTS's library-based
infrastructure makes it faster and more cost-effective to update the
system with new platforms (like the Type 26 and QEC carrier), new
equipment and new scenarios. The COTS approach also makes system repair
and maintenance much more cost-effective due to the generic nature of
the system's components.
Simulating the essentials
Inevitably,
PC-based simulation software is going to come up short when compared to
bespoke simulation hardware in terms of mimicking the physical
operating environment onboard a real warship. Tuck noted that while MCTS
is perfect for developing operational skills, it's down to live
exercises and other activities to give students a physical familiarity
with the vessels themselves. "There's a complete spectrum of
training that needs to go together," he said. "MCTS forms a very
important part of that, but it's not the totality of all the training
they need."When it comes to familiarisation with the control
systems that crews will be using in the field, however, MCTS has it
covered. The system provides a perfect recreation of the buttons and
screens of real RN warships, and its scenario options are almost
unlimited.
Former commanding officer of the HMS Daring Captain
Paul Bennett was certainly impressed. "My immediate reaction was 'how on
earth can that simulate a ship's system?' There's no hardware. Then the
screens come up and you have malleable, exact electronic replicas of
each piece of kit," he said.
Beyond the fidelity to real
operational software, MCTS offers a comprehensive range of scenarios.
"In simple terms, MCTS contains any part of the world, in terms of where
you want to set your scenario," claimed Tuck. "It's got the complete
range of environmental conditions, from atmospherics, times of day, sea
states, wind directions, tides, sonar profiles for water columns and so
on. It has the complete set of threats identified by the navy built in.
"You
can set the training to be as simple or as complex as you want,
depending on whether it's basic training for junior individuals or
full-on mission rehearsal for a fully worked-up ship's team. We've got
the visuals, so if students look through the electro-optical tracker,
they can see there's a ship in the distance or they can see the
helicopter on the flight deck through the flight deck camera."
With
the system's ability to record and replay scenarios, Tuck believes it
could also prove useful as a way of testing new tactics and experimental
approaches to modern-day operations like counter-piracy.
"If they
want to try a different tactical approach to a scenario, then modify it
based on the simulation, MCTS allows them to assess, practice and
modify those tactics. So increasingly, because of the flexibility it
produces compared to its predecessors, I think we're going to see MCTS
increasingly used for that mission rehearsal, current threat, update
tactics type of approach."
The future of advanced simulation
In
terms of future applications, MCTS is built to easily incorporate new
features as the need arises. For example, Tuck mentioned that while an
automatic student assessment process within MCTS is not a current
requirement, it's a feature that has been discussed as a potential
future complement to the system's current record and replay
capabilities. He also says that simulation could provide vital
visualisation capabilities, highlighting a virtual avatar walkthrough
application for the new QEC aircraft carrier in particular.
As the
RN continues its move towards greater interconnectivity between
systems, Tuck predicted that MCTS could form the core of new connected
training. "Will they want to link that to third-party training systems?
With Merlin helicopters, for example, a pilot could be in his
helicopter, flying around and interacting with a ship, or a Typhoon
pilot in his cockpit trainer. So I think we'll see that increasing
connectivity when it delivers value and usefulness."
Ultimately,
Tuck sees simulation as an increasingly important part of the entire
naval process, not just training. "I think throughout the CADMID cycle
[the Royal Navy's procurement and life cycle management strategy],
simulation supports all of those stages. We use it for early
visualisation and experimentation. There's lots of advanced simulation
to support aspects of engineering development and integration
activities. We use it in training, but also it's getting used
increasingly in support of the delivery of services through process
modelling and logistics chains throughout the naval enterprise."
So
while MCTS will undoubtedly play a central role in the Royal Navy's
training for years to come, simulation seems set to sweep through naval
design, engineering, procurement and operations as a whole. Whether it's
training a new generation of expert personnel or supporting the
development of new platforms and equipment, simulation is rapidly
becoming an invaluable resource for any advanced naval force.
* Article publicat a Naval Technology. La innovació en el camp de l'entrenament i els simuladors, és quelcom vital per tal de mantenir les tripulacions als nivells que marquen la diferència en combat. Creiem que el MCTS n'és un bon exemple
