Virtual Training -- Keeping It Real

摘要

An improvised explosive device is detonated near an Iraqi marketplace. A U.S. Army unit patrolling the vicinity is the obvious target. A young Iraqi boy and three women are killed instantly in the explosion. Dozens of Iraqi citizens are injured. A shopkeeper's wife saw something suspicious. CPT Clipp quickly goes to the market to meet with the shopkeeper and his wife. He greets them in Arabic, then asks the woman to tell him what she saw. The shopkeeper is outraged. 'You speak to me, not to her' he shouts. Clipp quickly apologizes, rethinks his approach and then carefully works with the shopkeeper to get the information he needs from the man's wife. What you just witnessed is not a real event, but rather a training scenario based on a real event. Soldiers need training in culturally appropriate behavior, bilateral engagement, and in the art/science of tactical questioning. Enter human-oriented training. Currently, live Iraqi role players provide realism for home station and combat training center human-oriented training. This vignette, however, is not part of a live scenario. It comes from the Cultural & Cognitive Combat Immersive Trainer-Demonstration (C3IT-D) prototype tested at Fort Benning, GA. Clipp is a real Soldier, but all of the other participants are life-sized computer- generated virtual humans created by the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). The realistic environment, complex characters, and technologies integrated to create this prototype were the result of collaboration by the ICT; the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) Simulation and Training Technology Center (STTC); and the U.S. Army Infantry Center. This article discusses the following thrusts of ICT's interdisciplinary research program: virtual humans, realistic graphics, social and cultural representation, and intelligent tutoring systems.