I/ITSEC 2023: CAE and Cubic to mix live training with virtual at US Navy base in 2024

Cubic and CAE will set up the Next Generation Advanced Training Environment (NXTGEN8) at the US Navy Guam base for exercise Valiant Shield 2024, the companies revealed at I/ITSEC 2023 in Orlando, Florida.

The North American firms have merged their technologies and eight of their product and service offerings to create a full live, virtual and constructive (LVC) training solution.

NXTGEN8 fuses Cubic’s SLATE, SPEAR, Live Instrumentation and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) Integration capabilities with CAE’s Virtual Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Training Application (VISTA), simulations, distributed edge cloud infrastructure and encryption.

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Some of the products have already been in use or have been under contract with the US DoD. CAE and Cubic officials told Shephard that the core capabilities together could provide the ability to emulate potential peer fight scenarios with authenticity, complexity and density, mirror real-world combat scenarios and enable precise assessments of training proficiency.

Under NXTGEN8, the companies have already flown more than 100 LVC sorties using US fighter jets. The officials said that future live assets such as loyal wingmen, expandable remote carriers (ERC) and sixth-generation fighter capabilities could easily be introduced into the solution due to its agnostic design.

‘We’ve spent about 110 sorties to this point developing this capability, and it’s been a collaboration between the AFRL [Air Force Research Laboratory], the [US] Navy at Nav Air and industry partnership,’ said Paul Averna, advanced training solutions executive at Cubic Defense.

The partners developed a secure LVC advanced training environment initially as an Advanced Technology Demonstrator in 2018 at US Air Force base Nellis, with follow-on development conducted in 2021 and 2022.

‘Now we’re going to take this whole system to Guam for the Indo-Pacific Multi-domain Training and Experimentation [PAYCOM] capability,’ Averna said.

Keith Taylor, director for the navy business development team at CAE, said: ‘As part of this effort, we bring to different variations, we bring two different variations of aircraft, the F-16s and F-15s, that will be a key part of this unit.

‘Then there is…SCARS with a programme of record owner for similar common architecture requirements and standards, which is a [US] Air Force effort. In 10 years, that [SCARS] will be pit at every air force training site where they have simulation.’

SCARS is a cloud-based environment with on-premise equipment which brings training into a cyber-hardened, app-based environment.

Exercise Valiant Shield 2024 will begin in June, but CAE and Cubic will start moving equipment to Guam by April or May, the company representatives revealed.

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