{"id":6937,"date":"2020-12-04T08:06:47","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T11:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/?p=6937"},"modified":"2020-12-04T08:06:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T11:06:47","slug":"ebullet-el-nuevo-simulador-para-adiestramiento-de-combate-cercano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/?p=6937","title":{"rendered":"eBullet, el nuevo simulador para adiestramiento de combate cercano"},"content":{"rendered":"

Un nuevo Sistema de Simulaci\u00f3n para el entrenamiento de Combate Cercano, denominado eBullet<\/strong> ha sido desarrollado para reemplazar al conocido MILES, utilizado por d\u00e9cadas en muchos ej\u00e9rcitos. eBullet <\/strong>agrega a las tradicionales funciones del arma individual, m\u00faltiples efectos tales como simulaci\u00f3n de trayectorias, onda expansiva de explosiones, condiciones particulares del clima como viento \/ temperatura y asimismo, avisa al combatiente si ha sido herido o ha muerto. Adem\u00e1s, puede ser empleado en mayor variedad de armas tales como Lanzagranadas y morteros livianos.<\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON: For 40 years, US soldiers have trained<\/a> using a militarized form of laser tag, called MILES. Those days are drawing to an end. The Army replacement, called eBullet, calculates true ballistic flight paths to within a seventeenth of a degree and allows for a much greater array of weapons to be simulated.<\/p>\n

The new system superimposes simulated trajectories, explosive blasts, and other virtual effects on real-world terrain, adjusts for real-world weather factors like wind and temperature, and electronically notifies soldiers whether they\u2019re been \u201ckilled\u201d or \u201cwounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new system promises much greater realism since\u00a0real bullets don\u2019t behave like beams of light, which follow perfectly flat trajectories and can\u2019t penetrate smoke, tents, or even leaves. And it can simulate a much wider array of weapons than MILES.<\/p>\n

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A soldier uses MILES, a laser-tag-like system.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

eBullet will not only simulate the flight paths of rifle rounds more accurately than a straight-line laser: It can simulate the arcing trajectories of such vital infantry weapons as grenade launchers and mortars, which MILES can\u2019t cope with at all. Future upgrades could simulate the propagation of radio-frequency jamming, poison gas, and biological agents.<\/p>\n

\u201cMILES has not been able to replicate or simulate many weapons systems,\u201d said Frank Tucker, the live-training technology lead for the Synthetic Training Environment<\/a> team at Army Futures Command. \u201cIt\u2019s only been able to simulate 60 percent of the current inventory of weapons.\u201d Worse, he said, it can\u2019t simulate enemy<\/em> weapons or potential future<\/em> weapons at all.<\/p>\n

But with eBullet, Tucker told me in an interview, adding a new weapon could be as simple as tweaking a few factors in the model to create a \u201cdigital twin\u201d of an existing or potential technology. \u201cThe Army now can dream up a new weapons system and synthetically deploy it in a training exercise to see how it works or doesn\u2019t work, without bending metal,\u201d he said. \u201cIt can just simply be a model that\u2019s embedded in e-bullet.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more complex phenomena, like electronic<\/a> or biochemical warfare<\/a>, the service could just take existing Army effects-propagation models and plug them into the eBullet suite. \u201cYou can do some very, very interesting things we never had in live training,\u201d Tucker said. \u201cWe\u2019ve never been able to train this stuff \u2014 never.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the first product using eBullet technology has applications in combat, not just training. \u201cThe normal process for aiming a mortar, it\u2019s a very manual approach,\u201d Tucker said. \u201cYou have to go out and put out aiming stakes. It takes up to five minutes to set up and start aiming.\u201d And, he told me, mortar crews need to carry a 40-pound, $60,000 gyrocompass called a Talon II to ensure everything\u2019s correctly aligned.<\/p>\n

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The eBullet technology is part of the Army\u2019s new system for aiming mortars in combat, WULF (Weaponized Universal Lightweight Fire Control)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By contrast, the new system, called WULF (Weaponized Universal Lightweight Fire Control<\/a>), weighs about 10 pounds. It uses computer vision and digital maps to determine exactly where the weapon is aligned relative to the terrain, then calculates the proper settings for both elevation (up\/down) and azimuth (left\/right). \u00a0The mortar team reads the settings off their handheld device, \u201cand all they do is they crank twice,\u201d Tucker said. \u201cInstead of five minutes, it takes less than one minute to aim a mortar.\u201d<\/p>\n

In combat, saving four minutes could save lives.<\/p>\n

How accurate is this system? It\u2019s twice as good as the existing Talon II, Tucker said, with errors under one milliradian: That\u2019s less than one-seventeeth (0.58) of one degree.<\/p>\n

Now, there\u2019s a crucial caveat here. To get that accuracy in real life, your digital map<\/em> has to be accurate \u2013 down to the precise locations of trees and trenches, modeled in three dimensions. Otherwise eBullet\u2019s simulated trajectories won\u2019t correspond to actual flight paths in the real world.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the Army is investing heavily in a global 3D database known as One World Terrain<\/a>. Since the landscape constantly changes \u2013 due to new construction, mudslides, or, in war zones, large explosions \u2013 that database will have to be constantly updated. The Army\u2019s developed technology to let\u00a0drones<\/a> or soldiers with video cameras scan new terrain features, using photogrammetry<\/a> software to automatically turn the images into map updates.<\/p>\n

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Close-up of the Army\u2019s proposed \u201ceBullet\u201d training scope<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From Mortars To Rifles To AI<\/strong><\/p>\n

The mortar-aiming system will be the first eBullet application, not only because of its tactical and training value, but because a device mounted on a mortar can afford to be heavier than one fitted to, say, a rifle. As the Army matures the technology, Tucker said, it\u2019ll both scale it for vehicle-mounted weapons and miniaturize it it to fit on smaller and smaller infantry weapons:<\/p>\n