SubscribeWith the unfortunate events unfolding around the world today, there is a growing interest in Europe for simulation and training in homeland defence applications.
Recent technology breakthroughs are providing defence and homeland security with the opportunity for low-cost, easy to use and realistic visualization capabilities for training, planning and decision-support.
Design Academy has introduced these same technology solutions into the UK and is currently working with several leading universities to develop appropriate research, training and simulation facilities for defence, government and industry.
Below you will find specific areas of interest where our partner EON Reality has Homeland Defence Centres in the US currently using 3D visualisation for relevant training and research applications –
- Human Modelling and Simulation
- Hazardous Material Safety Training
- Emergency and Incident Response Training
- Real-time simulated environment
- Chemical and Biological Dispersion
- Shared Real-Time Virtual Environment
- Maritime Security Training
- Intelligent Systems Research
- Multi Wall Stereoscopic VR Systems
- Crisis Management
- Weapons of Mass Destruction
Human Modelling and Simulation
- Human Modelling and Simulation of emergency personnel, security personnel, and cultural immersion. Applications include support for facial expression tracking, gesture quality recognition and speech analysis.
- Border surveillance, screening and stronger transportation protection (airport security & checking).
- The Centre for Human Modelling and Simulation has extensive expertise in human figure modelling and animation, especially with respect to the problems of motion specification and control.
- The Centre for Human Modelling and Simulation is the creator of the Jack software, used worldwide for human figure animation and human factors analysis.
- Recent research on Virtual Humans including fast motion generators, natural language interfaces, Parameterized Action Representation (PAR) etc.
"At University of Pennsylvania the HDC is designed to train emergency personnel, security personnel, cross-cultural sensitivity, foreign language and cultural immersion - these areas require close-up virtual humans with appropriate behaviours and input channels that can inform them of the emotional or physiological state of the trainee. Some of the methods used include facial expression tracking, gesture quality recognition and speech analysis."
Hazardous Material Safety Training
- Hazardous Hazmat Material safety (hands on training in handling and disposing of dangerous devices or chemical/biological materials).
- Nuclear safeguards (training in facility security) and petro-chemical facilities.
- WSU has an extensive VR research expertise in areas such as realistic interactions between human and virtual objects in immersive environments, Bi-directional data integration and Internet-based real-time collaboration between dissimilar systems.
"The HDC at Washington State University is designed to train emergency personnel, security personnel and first responders (through simulations) in areas such as handling and disposing of dangerous devices or chemical/biological materials, infrastructure anti-terrorist protection and collaboration environments during emergencies.
A particular advantage with our joint approach is that all applications are fully scalable, all training can be conducted either on line utilizing normal PC’s, immersed using head mounted display or in a theatre environment using stereoscopic large screen display systems".
Emergency and Incident Response Training
- Emergency response training and incident response training in urban areas.
- Protection of critical infrastructure in urban environment (including bridges, critical buildings, rail roads).
- The Visualization and Interactive Systems Group (VIS) has an extensive research expertise in areas such as terrain mapping for interactive visualization, vision-based motion tracking for risk assessment during catastrophic events and visualization of large-scale fields with superimposed information.
"The HDC at UCI is designed to train emergency personnel, security personnel and first responders, in areas such as security and rescue training for urban areas. For unplanned events such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters, the quicker one can view the problem, the quicker one can react with a plan.
More importantly, emergency procedures can be practiced and reviewed in advance for many different scenarios enabling various groups working together to understand their roles in the operation.
An example would be state and local fire and police working with National Guard troops. Real-time three-dimensional visualization is a fundamental training, communication, and operational tool in the fight against terrorism".
Real-time simulated environment
- Real-time simulated environment that facilitates information processing from sensors (for example nuclear, biological, chemical) using knowledge- based support systems and virtual reality.
- Recent projects include work with the U.S. Navy to develop knowledge- based remote maintenance and repair (tele-maintenance) systems, development of distributed data acquisition with the Department of Energy.
- Working with a research consortium the Naval Surface Warfare Centre, the lab is also developing a knowledge management system to provide dynamic, user and situation aware support for diagnosis processes.
- The Knowledge Acquisition and Projection Lab in the Pervasive Technology Laboratories at Indiana University as an extensive research expertise in areas such as ubiquitous computing, knowledge-based support systems, visualization, and virtual reality include telepresence, tele-immersion and shared virtual spaces.
Chemical and Biological Dispersion
- Visualization of dispersions of chemical and biological agents in the air, water or within buildings (air- or water-borne local toxic dispersion).
- Correlation of numerical models for use in chemical/biological areas and adaptation for real time visualization for the purposes of both decision support and communication.
- Texas Technology University also has a task force for Anti-terrorism and Public Security.
Shared Real-Time Virtual Environment.
- Virginia Modelling Analysis and Simulation Centre (VMASC) has extensive research expertise in VR and Virtual Environments for Training of checkpoint control and shared real-time virtual environment development of operations other than war (OOTW) training scenarios.
- The Virginia Modelling, Analysis and Simulation Centre is a not-for-profit collaborative enterprise centre of Old Dominion University's College of Engineering and Technology focused on modelling, simulation, visualization research and cultivating simulation technology expertise through industry, government and academia.
Maritime Security Training
- Increased maritime security training for border's control (training Patrols to secure major US Ports and water ways).
- The Department of Computer Science at Norfolk State University has an extensive expertise in areas such web Servers and interest in developing scalable web based training applications for first responders that can be seamlessly used either in an Immersive multi-wall system or Head Mounted Displays (HMD) or on a simple PC.
- Today, the University is proud to be one of the largest predominantly black institutions in the nation. Furthermore, it is committed to pursuing its vital role of serving the area of the Hampton Roads, which has become this nation's centre for the military application of modelling and simulation and numerous US Navy operational commands including the Commander Operational Test and Evaluation Force, the Naval Sea Systems Command and the Space and Naval Warfare Centre.
Intelligent Systems Research
The Centre for Intelligent Systems Research (CISR) at George Washington University was chartered to advance the science of intelligent systems and foster its engineering applications. Fundamental and applied research is conducted in intelligent systems such as Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, Genetic Algorithms, hybrid methods, and intelligent agents. Their applications are in pattern recognition, controls, model development, complex interactive networks, and networks optimization among others.
A major focus of research is on safety in Intelligent Transportation Systems. CISR uses the fundamental intelligent systems methods to solve a variety of highway safety, vehicle control, rail transportation, and networks problems.
At CISR, we have established a successful record of integrating leading-edge research from different disciplines. Intelligent systems are combined with analytical and information processing methods to solve real transportation problems. Establishing interdisciplinary teams of faculty from various disciplines has strengthens our research.
The research is tied into a multidisciplinary education program that draws from the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science. Formal education, leading to a degree in Transportation Safety, includes courses in traffic engineering and highway safety.
- Protection of US government critical infrastructure (including embassy, consulate, and other government official buildings) from land based vehicle attacks and other terrorist threats.
- Stronger transportation protection.
- Executive level responder training for emergency preparation.
- George Washington University has extensive research expertise in dynamics simulation and modelling, with applications in transportation, vehicles, and safety and hosts the FHWA/NHTSANational Crash Analysis Centre.
Almost all the research activities of CISR are supported by externally sponsored grants and contracts. Therefore, we have significantly increased financial opportunities for all our students by offering research fellowships and assistantships. The centre is proud to attract highly qualified students who are conducting interdisciplinary research in engineering. We strive to provide the most rewarding educational experience for them. We are also proud of our student's and faculty's accomplishments, pleased to share our research findings, and welcome your involvement and collaboration.
Please visit CISR to learn more
Multi Wall Stereoscopic Systems
- Development cost effective, scalable and collaborative multi wall stereoscopic integrated systems.
- Development of EON Based Digital avatars.
- The Digital Humans Lab has developed and built a fully immersive virtual reality environment.
"By using EON as the underlying software platform users can for the first time share fully interactive content from the ICUBE to the Internet, a laptop or even a wireless mobile display device. This provides an unsurpassed scalability and cost efficiency."
Dr. Karim Malek, Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and Director, Iowa Design Institute, at the University of Iowa.
Crisis Management
- Fire fighters training for terrorist attacks and disasters.
- Training of first responder volunteers and public within Extended Homeland Security Laboratory at the University of Maine.
- University of Maine has an extensive expertise in Crisis Management, is a Co-founder of the Multi-Sector Crisis Management Consortium and active in Crisis Management/Homeland Security since 1999 (also have a Homeland Security Lab - see here).
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
- Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) training focused on chemical attacks (detection and decontamination training).
- The University of Missouri Rolla Virtual Reality and Rapid Prototyping Laboratory (VRPL) has several currently activities using Virtual Reality for WMD detection training.
