British Army invests £1 million in VR programme for soldier training

VR training programme will provide soldiers with the kind of simulated scenarios that are difficult to recreate on traditional training grounds

The British Army is investing more than £1 million in a hi-tech virtual reality (VR) programme that will depict hostile virtual reality environments to enable soldiers to hone their skills.

A £1 million contract has been awarded to software developer Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim), which was spun-out of the games software company behind the game ARMA 3, to explore how VR can be incorporated into soldier training.

Founded in Australia in 2001, BISim is known for developing military simulation and training software. The company employs more than 250 people in the US, UK, Australia, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland, and offers its products to more than 50 defence organisations to train their personnel.

BISim's Virtual Reality in Land Training (VRLT) pilot programme aims to improve future military training by exploiting the advantages of VR technology.

The programme will test a variety of virtual reality applications, including high resolution VR headsets to enhance environmental immersion; avatars that can be customised to imitate facial features and body structures of fellow soldiers; mixed reality enabling soldiers to interact with objects; and, technology offering analysis to help soldiers understand their own performance.

The training programme will provide soldiers multiple hostile simulated scenarios - such as heavy crowds and cross-fires or a building occupied by enemy soldiers - which are usually difficult to create in traditional training grounds.

The £1 million contract has been awarded via the £800 million Defence Innovation Fund, which aims to integrate advanced technology into the military frontline and which has been helping to develop "cutting-edge ideas to benefit front-line services."

With VRLT, it will be possible to quickly set-up and re-run training situations, and then analyse them to arrive at the most effective approaches to real-life challenges on the battlefield.

"The Army has a reputation for world class training which prepares our people for demanding and complex operations," said Brigadier Bobby Walton-Knight CBE, Army Head of Training Capability.

"Innovations such as virtual reality offer immersive and flexible training, and this pilot is pushing the boundaries to explore how we might make best use of it."

At the end of the VRLT testing, recommendations will be submitted on how this technology can be best exploited to train British soldiers and prepare them for future challenges.