Aerobel was awarded in 1997 a major contract from Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace - the Norwegian prime contractor for the supply of a Combined Combat Simulator consisting of 8 Leopard & CV9030 Simulator Cabins to the Norwegian Army.
Key requirements of the Combined Combat Simulator are to train Cavalry officers and their crew in gunnery and tactics up to company level. The latter is a radical new requirement that has been implemented by using Distributed Interactive Simulation technology thereby making this Simulator amongst the most advanced in Europe.
The 8 Simulator Cabins & their associated instructor stations have been integrated - together with a large auditorium for live viewing and after-action review - into a new Norwegian Army training facility near Oslo. 4 of the Simulator Cabins represent the interior of a Leopard main battle tank and the other 4 Simulator Cabins represent the interior of a CV9030 armoured infantry fighting vehicle. The crew of each Simulator have all of the sighting systems & episcopes so that they can interact with their own & enemy forces. The commander also has the ability to view these forces whilst out-of-the-hatch. Each Simulator Cabin can be operated in either a stand-alone or interconnected mode.
Aerobel has generated 2 high fidelity geospecific terrain databases each covering an area of over 500km2 together with 40 entity models representing own & enemy forces including dismounted infantry. This enables Soldiers to participate in tactical operations at platoon & higher formation level in the North & South of Norway in summer & winter conditions without leaving their barracks!
On winning this competition, Nicholas Wrobel, Aerobel's Managing Director said:
"Aerobel and Kongsberg Simulation & Training have demonstrated that, through collaboration, 2 small leading edge companies have provided an innovative, low risk and value-for-money solution which meets the Customer's very demanding requirements. These 8 Simulator Cabins are amongst the most advanced currently being produced in Europe and this contract award has confirmed the company's position as one of Silicon Graphics' leading Vis Sim partners in Europe.
It is the culmination of nearly 7 years of investment in this emerging technology which has seen the company deliver the largest number of DIS-compliant systems currently in-service in the UK. For example, the UK's Royal Military College of Science has 6 Crewstations in its Simulation & Synthetic Environment Laboratory; these have been operating successfully since 1995 with computer-generated forces provided by ModSAF.
This programme has enabled Aerobel to demonstrate its technical leadership. Significantly, the timing could not be better with Aerobel having a provenFamily of Crewstation products just as there is increasing worldwide interest in reconfigurable desktop simulators and combined arms tactics trainers".
Realtime Visuals on Norwegian Army Combined Combat Simulator & Gunnery Training Simulator
