Virtual Reality and Technologies for Combat Simulation   [open pdf - 738KB]

Synthetic-environment technology is dual-use. Research funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) seeded the field. Now there is a large commercial market, and DoD is actively exploiting the dynamism and efficiency of that market. Advances in synthetic environment technologies such as computer image generation are reducing the costs of cockpit simulators and facilitating other applications. This paper describes technical challenges and discusses issues of validation, standardization, scalability, flexibility, effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and infrastructure.