Conference News and Media
SimTecT 2000 Selection of Pictures Published30 May 2000
SimTecT 2000 Endorsed by the US National Training Systems Association25 February 2000
Haptic Workbench Demonstrated at Medical Symposium Day18 February 2000
Full Conference Program Released16 February 2000
Training Approaches and Fidelity Workshop11 February 2000
HLA & Distributed Simulation Special Interest Group Primer8 February 2000
Medical Simulation Symposium5 February 2000
Historic Link Trainer at Conference5 February 2000
Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference12 January 2000
Land 134 Combat Training Centre SIG23 December 1999 and 16 February 2000
History of Aviation Simulation Paper17 December 1999
Support from Defence Simulation Office16 December 1999
Support from Surgeons10 December 1999
Synthetic Environments Keynote Address22 November 1999
Message from SimTecT Convenor, Tony Landers21 November 1999
SimTecT 2000 - Training Down-UnderMT & SN April 2000
Working Smarter in the New MillenniumADBR 16 November 1999
SimTecT 2000 Endorsed by the US National Training Systems Association
The US National Training Systems Association (organisers of the world-renowned Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference), have endorsed SimTecT 2000 as "of interest to our industry".Haptic Workbench Demonstrated at Medical Symposium Day
The Haptic Workbench from the ACSys CRC will be exhibited at the SimTecT Medical Symposium. Applications range from sculpting to 3D geological modelling to an intra-vascular cannulation simulator:
Full Conference Program Released
The Full Conference Program and Index of Papers was released today.Training Approaches and Fidelity Workshop
The Convenor of the Training Approaches and Fidelity workshop, Phil Wallace, has released details of the members of the workshop panel, and the subject material.HLA & Distributed Simulation Special Interest Group Primer
The Convenor of the HLA Special Interest Group, Dr John Best, has released a Primer to assist the discussion.Medical Simulation Symposium
The SimTecT 2000 committee has organised a highly focussed Medical Simulation Symposium that will serve as a valuable information exchange between the medical and simulation fraternity.The Symposium commences with the Medical Applications Workshop in the morning, followed by an afternoon of presentations and discussion.
Historic Link Trainer at Conference
One of the original flight simulators, made by Link Corporation in 1943, will be displayed at SimTecT 2000, thanks to the Air Training Corps No. 7 (City of Bankstown) Flight, NSW Squadron. The simulator, motion base, and instructor's plotting table are in the process of being restored by members of the ATC, including repainting to the famous Link "Blue". |
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Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference
The SIAA is pleased to cooperate with other organisations who are promoting the development and use of Simulation Technology and Training.MMVR2000, the eighth annual MMVR conference, will again present interactive computer-based technology for healthcare. At MMVR2000, physicians, researchers, and entrepreneurs can share clinical experience and vision.
The Conference will be held at the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel & Tennis Club, Newport Beach, California from January 27 - 30, 2000.
Land 134 Combat Training Centre SIG
The Project Office from the Land 134 - Combat Training Centre (CTC) Instrumentation System project will conduct a Special Interest Group interactive briefing on as part of the Army Simulation Special Interest Group on Wednesday1 March, 15.00 to 17.00.The purpose of the Land 134 special interest group is to seek industry input into the Land 134 instrumentation system.
The program will consist of an overview of Army's CTC program and the role of the Land 134 instrumentation system. This will be followed by industry comment, including feedback and input, both as a group, and, if applicable, individually in separate conference rooms.
In attendance will be the User Group, Project Sponsor, Industry Involvement Organisation and the Defence Acquisition Organisation Project Director. Further details are available on the Special Interest Groups section of this website.
History of Aviation Simulation Paper
Aviation simulation's "Living Treasure", Mr Ray L. Page, will present a unique paper to the SimTecT 2000 Conference.In 1979 the Royal Aeronautical Society and the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics jointly sponsored a conference in London to recognise fifty years from the date on which Edwin Link made application to patent his trainer. Edwin Link was the official guest of honour at that function and this presentation will use many of the slides made available to the author for his attendance at that event. It will also include a short video developed by the now former Link Corporation to celebrate their role in the first fifty years which contains some very historic footage of early simulation devices.
Ray Page currently operates as a senior consultant to the Simulation Industry, being able to offer the experience from an unparalleled background of forty years in the Simulation Industry with experience in all areas, from maintenance development and procurement, to management of QANTAS Simulation Services, Australia's oldest and largest simulation organisation.
Over these years, Ray achieved International recognition for both his knowledge and role in the formation of industry standards.
Support from Defence Simulation Office
Mr Cliff White, the Head of the Australian Defence Simulation Office, has written to the Chairman of the SIAA:"I'm delighted to see SimTecT 2000 showing all the signs of becoming the key simulation event for the region during the year 2000.
You'll recall that the Department of Defence, and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation in particular, cooperated with industry some years ago to establish the Simulation Industry Association of Australia. We've also been keen to provide technical input for the SimTecT conferences since their inception in 1996.
Simulation techniques are being used increasingly within the Defence organisation. Key applications can be found providing vital support to meeting the demands of analysis, acquisition, training and operational areas.
High quality technical papers, an exhibition of the state-of-the art in simulation technology together with opportunities for dialogue between industry, academia and government all combine to make participation in SimTecT a valuable investment.
I very much look forward to SimTecT 2000 and will be urging many of my colleagues to attend as well."
Support from Surgeons
Simulation is the key to improving the skills and shortening the training of surgeons says Dr Bruce Barraclough, President of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) in the lead up to SimTecT 2000, the premier Simulation and Technology Exhibition and Conference in the Australasian region. "RACS is involved in the development of major skills laboratories", said Dr Barraclough. "We need to use simulation in the medical environment to improve, define and develop surgical skills in order to improve the quality and safety of surgical services".
Synthetic Environments Keynote Address
Dr Simon Mepham, the Assistant Director, Synthetic Environments, from the UK Ministry of Defence, has joined the Keynote speakers who were listed in the Call for Papers brochure.His presentation is titled "Ministry of Defence and Synthetic Environments: The Theory and Practice". You can read more about Dr Mepham and the other Keynote Speakers in the Keynote section of this website.
Message from SimTecT Convenor
The SIAA is once again proud to be hosting SimTecT, Australasia's premier simulation and related technologies conference and exhibition. SimTecT 2000 brings together the region's leading simulation practitioners, users and policy makers. The extensive SimTecT 2000 technical program consists of over 70 technical papers, seven highly focused workshops and four Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings. The US Defense Modelling and Simulation Office (DMSO) will again be participating.We are particularly excited about expanding SimTecT beyond Defence to embrace simulation in the Medical, Manufacturing and Building and Construction industries. As you can see from the attached CVs, the local and international keynote speakers will again be a highlight, and reflect the diversity of industries making practical use of simulation.
The SimTecT 2000 exhibition will showcase the current state of the simulation art from Australia and around the world. I encourage you take the time to see what is possible.
SimTecT 2000 will be held at the Darling Harbour Convention & Exhibition Centre, Sydney. As the host city for the 2000 Olympic Games, Sydney provides the perfect backdrop for the SimTecT 2000 social program. Highlights of the social program include the Sydney Harbour Dinner Cruise and the Conference dinner. We look forward to the networking opportunities provided. This is a wonderful opportunity to share the experience of diverse industries in order to maximise the benefits for all participants from the utilisation of simulation.
The combination of the world class technical program, world class exhibition and world class venue make SimTecT 2000 the highlight of our region's simulation calendar. I look forward to seeing you there.
Tony Landers
Conference Convenor
SimTecT 2000 - Training Down-Under
Military Training & Simulation News, Vol. 2 Issue 2 - April 2000This issue also includes a summary of Project Land 134 CTC. For copies of these articles, contact the Editor Trevor Nash
With the world's two major military training and simulation shows both being held in the Northern Hemisphere, Trevor Nash travels to Australia to visit SimTecT to see what the Southern Hemisphere has to offer. As his report shows, the organisers have an event that is well worth visiting for the standard of its papers and exhibition as well as for the quality of its delegates.
SimTecT 2000 was held at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour, Sydney from 28 February to 2 March 2000. Organised by the Simulation Industry Association of Australia Ltd (SIAA), the event differs from both the International/Industry Training Simulation & Education Conference (I/ITSEC) and the International Training & Education Conference (ITEC) in being organised by an industry association and not a commercial company.
To organise the event, the SIAA appoints Organising and Technical Committees to oversee the management of the conference. For this year's event, Tony Landers from Tenix Defence Systems was the Chairman of the Organising Committee whilst the Technical Committee was co-chaired by Grant Tudor from Adacel Technologies and Dr Martin Stytz from Wright Patterson AFB.
SimTecT 2000 saw three companies step-up to the line to provide sponsorship for the event, the major sponsor being CAE Electronics (Australia). Sponsorship for the reception and conference dinner was provided by Tenix Defence Systems and Adacel Technologies respectively.
This year's event marked a change in direction for SimTecT in that for the first time, the organisers added streams for the medical, manufacturing and building & construction sectors. Although small in comparison to the main military flavour of the event, attendees from these groups were able to look at some of the simulation technologies that are able to be migrated across the other applications. As well as hearing about these technologies during the paper sessions, the 500 visitors to the event were able to get some hands-on experience courtesy of the 20 exhibitors.
Historically, the Australian simulation industry has been a little disjointed with many companies having some simulation expertise but all lacking any real mass. The largest in-country player is undoubtedly CAE Electronics (Australia) with other companies, notably CSC Australia and Thomson-CSF Pacific undertaking significant work; CSC Australia mainly in the naval sector and Thomson-CSF in the air sector following its acquisition of Wormald Technology.
With the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) very keen to expand its use of simulation, other Australian companies, notably Tenix Defence Systems, are now investing in the simulation business. The question facing many of these companies is where and how they market their capabilities to both the ADF and to international clients. Although the Australian Government has always been insistent on maximising Australian defence industry content within defence contracts, these contracts are small and often these same Australian companies do not exploit the expertise that they have built-up to overseas markets. Whether the Australian simulation industry will become more international in the future is clearly a matter of debate. Looking at the technologies on display at SimTecT 2000, there is no reason why they cannot achieve this aim and thereby grow in size and capability.
PROGRAMME NOTES
Returning to SimTecT 2000, the first day of the event was given over to four special interest streams, these being Medical, HLA Applications, Training Approaches & Fidelity and Manufacturing Applications. Chaired by a panel of experts, these streams took the form of a series of papers that were followed by discussion groups.
Day two began with a plenary Opening Address by Dr Richard Brabin-Smith, the Chief Defence Scientist of the Australian Defence Science Technology Organisation (DSTO). Dr Brabin-Smith has always been a supporter of simulation for training, acquisition and tactics evaluation but he did proffer a warning that industry and the user must face-up to certain challenges.
"We must ensure that our simulation models are validated and verified to provide the user with the confidence that the models replicate what they are meant to," says Brabin-Smith. " We are now entering a period which provides a very exciting opportunity for simulation in defence as well as in other endeavours. These opportunities are so enormous that we will have difficulty in keeping up with them all."
Following this Opening Address and a Key Note Address by Alexander Vankov from the D3 Group GmbH on the topic of networked HLA simulation within the European EDISON programme, the audience split to attend four streams. These covered a range of topics from Applications and Distributed Simulation, Synthetic Environments and Simulation Methodology, to Models & Methods and Technology & Tools.
Halfway through the day, the UK's Lt Comd Jonathan Read RN provided a Key Note Address which looked at the UK's approach to Synthetic Environments (SE). Lt Comd Read is from the UK's SE Co-ordination Office (SECO). The ADF and DSTO are both adopting simulation techniques and approaches that mirror those being undertaken in the USA. This European approach to SE and HLA was of great interest and helped to provide a different view than that espoused by the US Defense Simulation & Modeling Office (DMSO).
During Lt Comd Read's address, he gave the audience a potted-history of the UK's involvement with SE. This included discussion on the UK-US collaborative Synthetic Theatre Of War (STOW) project, the Air Defence Synthetic Environment (ADSE) initiative, the HLA demonstration, Project FlasHLAmp as well as the Joint Training Warfighting Initiative (JWTI) and SE Based Acquisition (SEBA).
Day three followed the same format as day two with four streams. In addition to day two, additional streams covered Computer Generated Forces (CGF) and Training. The day also included a Special Interest Group (SIG) briefing and discussion by the Australian Army. This SIG focussed on the growing use of simulation in the Australian Army and an overview of the Army's Simulation Master Plan. This SIG followed the HLA and Situational Awareness SIG's on day two. Although good value, day three's events were eclipsed by the plenary opening address which was given by the Royal Australian Air Force's (RAAF) Director General Policy and Planning, Air Commodore John Blackburn.
His Keynote Address commenced with an overview of ADF and RAAF simulation policy. Air Commodore Blackburn described the 1997 ADF Simulation Policy that was put into abeyance a year later by the defence audits. In 1998 a Simulation Issues Paper was written but this, according to Air Commodore Blackburn, merely stated capabilities and did not look at how simulation could be used in the future.
"The problem has been that the ADF has developed single-service simulation strategies which see lots of arrows going in the same direction but not together," explains the Air Commodore. "As far as the RAAF is concerned, we have treated our simulators as platforms and not looked at the overall mission simulation issues. The same can be seen within the ADF which looks at simulation from the perspective of single-service and not joint force operation."
'Death by definition' and 'paralysis by analysis' have thwarted the ADF and prevented a conceptual idea of how simulation can be used, he argues. Although congratulating the ADF on the recent formation of the Australian Defence Simulation Office (ADSO) (see news page +++), "we must ask ourselves how serious we are when we appoint one man to do the job. We need industry participation from the start," adds Air Commodore Blackburn.
The Air Commodore's grasp of simulation is refreshing to see in such a senior military officer. He explained that "simulation and modelling is not just an adjunct, it is a key element of combat capability." He believes that, "the ADF is five to eight years behind where we should be" in the field of simulation and that in the future, issues such as information warfare, network-centric warfare, the revolution in military affairs and knowledge-based drivers will be the real factors affecting simulation.
'The challenge that we face is that as simulation, stimulation, C4I and SE's become more integrated, we lay ourselves open to attack from a variety of soft-kill weapons such as PSYOPS," says Blackburn.
With the Air Commodore's Keynote Address providing a rich source of after dinner discussion at that evening's Conference Dinner, day four dawned too early on Thursday morning. The programme finished at 1300 after three streams covering Methodology, Training and CGF/Agents. Of particular interest was the Training Stream Paper on using immersive virtual reality to teach deck-landings to helicopter pilots.
The afternoon saw an optional visit to the RAN's Maritime Warfare Training Centre (MWTC) at HMAS Watson. This trip was extremely topical as the MWTC is about to have its FFG, DDG and ANZAC simulators integrated to allow joint ship training. As part of the HMAS Watson visit, delegates were also shown the three ship's bridge simulators at the site.
SimTecT IN SUM
By any standard, SimTecT 2000 was a superbly organised event which drew together the movers and shakers of Australia's simulation industry and defence force decision-makers. The quality of the papers was extremely high and although small, the exhibition proved of interest to the 500 or so delegates.
Of these delegates, by far the largest number were from the Australian defence industry, ADF or DSTO groups. The Americans were there in force from organisations such as STRICOM, NAWCTSD and DMSO and the event also drew a number of British visitors from organisations such as SECO and the Air Warfare Centre. In much smaller numbers, visitors from Singapore, New Zealand and Malaysia helped to swell the international ranks.
The event has now become a regular feature of the MT&SN calendar and we look forward to attending next year's event that is going to be held in Canberra in July. The dates and venue are yet to be confirmed but as soon as they are, they will be featured in MT&SN.
Working Smarter in the New Millennium
Australian Defence Business Review 16 November 1999The Simulation Industry Association of Australia (SIAA) will play host next year to SimTecT 2000, the premier Simulation and Technology Exhibition and Conference in the Australasian region. The event will be held from the 28 February - 2 March at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour in Australia.
The theme of SimTecT 2000 is 'Advancing the Technology and Effective Applications of Simulation to Enhance Human Performance'. The event will showcase the current state of simulation as well as highlighting trends and innovations from around the world. SimTecT 2000 will cover all areas related to simulation, training and modelling including keynotes, papers, workshops and special interest groups from the Medical and Manufacturing sectors as well as a strong showing from Defence and Space Programs. It will bring together leading simulation practitioners, users and policy makers featuring a variety of specialist keynote speakers.
According to Tony Landers, Chair of the SimTecT Organising Committee, "we are proud to have so many notable experts attending the conference. Australia's Chief Defence Scientist, Dr Richard Brabin-Smith, will outline for us the present and future situation of simulation in Defence, which will be of particular interest in light of the recent establishment of the Australian Defence Simulation Office".
Other experts joining Dr Brabin-Smith are Colonel (Ret) Alexander Vankov discussing simulation technology for Space Programs, Dr Robert Johnson from Ciné-Med presenting the work being done in Medical Applications and Dr Jerry Duncan, Senior Staff Engineer at Deere & Company from the USA on Manufacturing Trends.