Since the 1980s, different military programs have worked to combine “models, simulations, people and real equipment into a common representation of the world.” Most recently, the U.S. Instead, organizations can run containerized technology “on the cloud,” using a modern and open web architecture. This is a step-change from today’s approach of integrating different simulation products through standard interoperability protocols. “Under the hood” of such a military metaverse would be a mix of simulation technologies to provide the user a seamless experience for whatever purpose the metaverse may be applied. Such a metaverse could have many useful applications, from training through to mission planning and rehearsal for real-world operations. In a recent article in the War on the Rocks newsletter, security-technology providers Jennifer McArdle and Caitlin Dohrman presented a vision for what may become the “military metaverse” for training: That is, a persistent simulated training environment.

Currently, most organizations have separate terrain data pipelines for different applications, which results in different-looking terrain in each system, adversely affecting interoperability and causing “fair fight” issues. While organizations now have access to an unprecedented amount of high-fidelity terrain data, realizing the data’s full potential, means conflating, correlating, and sharing the data with all of the many interoperable systems and applications. Military forces and supporting industries need more accessible, connected, and customizable methods of leveraging terrain data.

In the past, this has necessitated complex and bespoke terrain development pipelines, and long lead times – but newer solutions are emerging. In order to create terrain for high-fidelity simulations used in military training, developers must find accurate source data, build to multiple terrain formats utilizing the same source data to support multiple runtimes, store the data, synchronize the data between customer sites, and adjust the terrain as required by the training scenario. Soldiers test out Synthetic Training Environment tools at the Technology Integration Facility in Orlando.

Unity cloud build scene