Cubic wins customers for new small-weapons trainers
June 01, 2010
The U.S. Army Florida National Guard awarded Cubic Corp’s Simulation Systems Division a contract to provide virtual reality systems for small-arms tactical training, the company announced at ITEC 2010.
The $4.8 million contract covers 27 of Cubic’s new CombatRedi systems as well as four 180-degree Warrior Skills Trainers (WST).
CombatRedi is a wireless, user-worn virtual training system that includes a helmet-mounted video display and delivers game-quality graphics with a 60-by-45-degree field of view and 3-D stereo sound effects.
Trainees move through a 360-degree virtual environment and carry a wireless simulated rifle.
“CombatRedi fully immerses trainees into the virtual environment. This is a whole new way to train the dismounted soldier,” said Tony Padgett, Cubic Simulation’s immersive product line manager.
The WST uses the Bohemia Interactive Virtugal Battlespace 2 gaming engine.
Cubic also announced that it has developed a weapon simulator that replicates the characteristics of a Gatling-style gun, firing up to 3,000 rounds a minute.
Called the M134D Virtual Trainer, the simulator is modeled after the M134D Minigun, a six-barrel electric-powered machine gun that fires 7.62 millimeter rifle rounds at a rate of up to 50 rounds per second. Training on the real gun with live ammunition is therefore an expensive exercise.
“You are talking a dollar a round and you are shooting 3,000 rounds a minute,” Padgett said. The M134D simulator makes training exercises a fraction of the cost.
Cubic said it has so far received contracts for the M134D totaling around $5 million and for customers as varied as the U.S. Energy Department and the U.S. Army Special Forces at Fort Campbell, Ky.