Digital Convergence and its impact on COTS Training Solutions

摘要

This paper considers the use of Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) and its ability to provide cost-efficient and effective training and communications solutions by being adaptive to new technologies and taking advantage of digital media. Digital media and mobile platforms play a vital role in enabling exploitation of new technologies and this paper discusses some of the applications that have been implemented to date in the COTS field, as well as considering what might be achieved in the near future. Increasingly it is possible to provide different types of training aid through leveraging the same content in a range of forms; this facilitates learning in more intuitive and accessible ways whilst achieving improved cost and operational efficiencies. Cursive Simulation has been heavily involved in developing mobile and distributed simulations using COTS technologies and this paper looks at the performance of novel training methods in meeting the requirements for ever decreasing costs, whilst maintaining excellent training outcomes. The examples provided show that there is great scope for the 're-use' of software incorporating digital media, allowing this material to be consumed in different ways through different devices. The paper also includes an operational perspective on the training value of these approaches. As technology continues to advance there will be many innovative and exciting technologies that will broaden the means of delivering digital media. The key, in the present and in the future, is that technology development is focused - in the main this will be on consumer markets such as internet technology, smart phones, and the gaming industry. These have yielded some of the key recent advancements in training delivery. It is unlikely that the professional flight simulation industry will be able to directly influence the direction of these commodity technology markets, so it is important for our industry to consider how it can make best use of these off the shelf capabilities and where it should focus any investment. This paper not only addresses the state of the art regarding what COTS can provide, but also poses the question: "what is a COTS solution?" By analysing examples that have been delivered in the past two years, this paper will show that the '90% training solution' provides excellent value for money and capability, and that as digital media convergence continues there will be a blurring of the division between simulation and emulation allowing for more novel approaches to training; from simple single-person training aids to distributed, heterogeneous, multi-crew systems. It is argued that as progress is made in this area, a training programme can be distilled down into a single, large and complex, piece of digital media, comprising multiple formats, and that this can be done once before material is then consumed in different ways through different devices.