The Department of Defense have developed a new simulation technology to help the Navy track enemy submarines and they are testing it by rolling it into a commercial computer game. The Defense Advanced Research Project Arm's Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) software simulates tracking the evasive maneuvers used by submarines. The agency says that the software will soon be rolled into the ACTUV program's computers.
But the real kicker is who will get to test this new technique: simulation game players. DARPA has integrated it into the Dangerous Waters computer game by Sonalysts Combat Simulations and has made the ACTUV Tactics Simulator available online as a free download as well.
For more than a year DARPA has been experimenting with the Web, social networking, and online competitions as a part of a new approach to research and development. For example, it launched the DARPA Network Challenge in December 2009, which they used to explore how people use social networking and the Internet to solve time-critical challenges.
The Army is also developing a Second Life-style virtual world to simulate its peacekeeping operations and to train ground for soldiers. The architecture is being designed to support thousands of Internet connections at once.
Source: Information Week
