SAN
DIEGO, Calif. – July 19, 2007 – Cubic Defense
Applications, a defense unit of Cubic Corporation (Amex:
CUB), delivered breakthrough technology and capabilities
for joint military training during the biennial Talisman
Sabre exercise in Australia. Cubic is a worldwide provider
of combat training systems.
Cubic developed technology and expanded capabilities as
part of the Joint Combined Training Capability (JCTC)
effort, a cutting-edge initiative aimed at networking
the two allies’ virtual, computer-based training
systems and live combat training systems for better situational
awareness, feedback and objective performance measurement.
The
JCTC was officially recognized by Australia’s Minister
for Defence, the U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Joint Forces
Command during Talisman Sabre 07 at Shoalwater Bay Training
Area in June.
Cubic’s challenge for the JCTC portion of Talisman
Sabre was to ensure the different live training systems
could communicate with each other, even though the individual
systems were custom-designed for each country and not
designed to share information, and with virtual and computer-based
systems located in Australia and in the United States.
Lt. Gen. David Hurley, Chief of the Capability Development
Group for the Australian Defence Force, said Cubic did
an excellent job in integrating training systems for the
JCTC event.
“We are making a considerable investment in being
a networked Defence force, and our ability to interoperate
with the U.S. is going to be improved and measured through
this system,” General Hurley remarked. “The
JCTC was a proof of concept, and Cubic has played a fundamental
part in its success.”
Some of the groundbreaking capabilities Cubic provided
for JCTC included:
• Air-ground weapons effects simulation:
The ability for an F/A-18 aircraft equipped with Air Combat
Maneuvering Instrumentation (ACMI) to drop a virtual bomb
on live instrumented soldiers or vehicles, with real-time
casualty assessment and soldier feedback.
• Interoperable lasers: The capability
for the U.S. and Australia laser-based MILES/Tactical
Engagement Systems to be interoperable during training.
• Indoor tracking capability: Infrared
trackers enabled for U.S. and Australian training command
and control instrumentation systems to monitor the location
and actions of soldiers wearing player instrumentation
as they moved throughout the Urban Operations Training
Facility (UOTF).
• Indoor weapons effects: Shoot
through walls, blast, smoke and various other effects
to bring greater realism to training.
Meeting the JCTC’s challenging objectives required
intimate knowledge of the various training systems involved.
Cubic used its expertise in complex system integration
and common architectures such as HLA (High Level Architecture),
DIS (Distributed Interactive Simulation) and TENA (Test
& Training Enabling Architecture), as well as its
vast experience in live instrumentation, in the development
of the groundbreaking JCTC capabilities.
Key U.S. live systems used during the exercise were Cubic’s
Initial Homestation Instrumentation Training System (I-HITS)
including the MILES laser-engagement system deployed with
the U.S. Army, and the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) ACMI
system deployed with U.S. Marine Corps attack squadron
VFMA 212. Major Australian systems included the Cubic-developed
Land-134 deployable Combat Training Centre with the Tactical
Engagement Systems (TES), the Urban Operations Training
Facility (UOTF) instrumentation and the newly delivered
Royal Australian Air Force ACMI system.
In a press statement, Dr. Brendan Nelson, Australia’s
Minister for Defence, said the JCTC concept will better
prepare joint and combined operations in increasingly
complex environments.
U.S. Marine Corps Col. Michael Belcher, commanding officer
of the 25th Marine Corps Regiment, based in Massachusetts,
agreed. “We need to have that compatibility so we
understand what each is doing, to capitalize on the skills
of each other, know where our strengths and weaknesses
are and solve them,” he said.
Cubic Defense Applications (CDA), one of Cubic Corporation’s
major segments, is a world leader in realistic combat
training systems, mission support services and defense
electronics. The corporation's other major segment, Cubic
Transportation Systems, designs and manufactures automatic
fare collection systems for public mass transit authorities.