Total Learning Platform leverages immersive, virtual training to deliver better learning outcomes.
Entering the Navy as a young man, the value and importance of training was a key foundation of a naval career that would span 35 years. My initial training was an exhaustive two years of technical training. The education, I thought, was preparing me well for when I would step foot on the USS Simon Bolivar (SSBN 641 G) for the first time. After several years of classroom work memorizing schematics, systems, and processes, mine would surely be a seamless transition once my at-sea training began.
I was wrong!
Stepping onto the Boat was like entering a foreign country. Even after having done very well in my preparatory training, it was as if I was experiencing things for the first time. Although my training attempted to immerse me in the environment I would later experience, there were technical limitations to the immersion experience. It would be months after my arrival on the boat until I became a qualified crew member. Later in my career, when I was a ship captain, I would understand the competing demands placed on a crew, especially during operational tasking. Crewmembers who could qualify in a shorter period of time after arriving meant my ship could be ready to answer all bells at a moment’s notice and use valuable at-sea time to conduct operational tasking.
Times have changed!
Cubic’s Total Learning Platform (TLP) bridges the gap between classroom and shipboard training. A virtual, game-based approach personalizes training, blending all forms of instruction into a dynamic learning experience. Fundamentally, TLP reduces the time to qualify sailors and/or certify teams using this form of immersive training, which has been documented in the Immersive Virtual Ship Environment (IVSE) training and Surface Training Advanced Virtual Environment (STAVE) Program, report prepared by NAVAL SEA SYSTEMS COMMAND.
TLP revolutionizes the training experience and prepares students quicker for workforce readiness and proficiency than traditional instructor-led training. The ability to interact with a virtual environment that’s to scale - forming spacial recognition that will be experienced on a ship — is a fundamental distinction between TLP and traditional training.
TLP’s revolutionary common interfaces capture and track human performance along the continuum of training. Early in my career, my training performance was assessed by my Instructors or my division Chief. Once the training was complete or when I transferred from that command, all history of my proficiency was lost or became stale. With TLP’s open architecture, standard interfaces, and protocols, you can track individuals and even predict when additional training support is needed.
At its core, TLP is totally immersive. The reliance on Powerpoints and 2D pictures are minimized and replaced instead with authentic, virtual reality creations of every facet and component, down to the smallest switch and valve.
A Gaming Approach
Just like Xbox’s offerings to gamers, TLP allows students to interact with their environment and one another. However, in this case, they run through operational/emergency procedures and maintenance tasks. The results are profound: When students get to their ship, they’ve already developed the muscle and mental memory to transition from the virtual to real world. By navigating through an identical virtual environment that trained them on moving from space to space, and equipment to equipment, their learning experience is enhanced.
Scientists call this replication a “digital twin,” or virtual copy of physical assets or products. They’re designed to connect the real and virtual worlds, collecting real-time data from sensors which are then evaluated and simulated in a virtual copy. It’s an authentic, functional representation of the physical environment.
The Department of Defense is investing heavily in the next generation of virtual training solutions to address the multidomain, operational environments our Warfighters will face. With over 30 years of virtual training solutions delivered to the Department of Defense and Allied nations, Cubic has been an industry leader in this space.
Last year, Cubic was awarded a $99 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract to deliver immersive training solutions that are Surface Training Advanced Virtual Environment (STAVE) compliant. This year, Cubic was awarded a $92.3 million contract with the Navy to continue with the Sailor 2025 training modernization under the Ready, Relevant Learning (RRL) pillar.
TLP is cost effective, as content is reusable across the entire continuum of training and where commonality exists, across different ship classes or platforms. Digital in nature, once a virtual environment is created, it can efficiently transition into other forms of “point-of-need” delivery, such as mobile or cloud-based delivery. Perhaps more impressive, it incorporates built-in efficiencies that apply to multiple environments. For instance, if you have a fleet of different ship classes but they share equipment commonality— let’s say a gas turbine engine— there’s no need to re-digitize the engine for each ship class. With the digital twin you’ve created, you could use your resources to build more functionality (fidelity) into the digital twin, focus on difference training, or even address high risk equipment casualties that you would never conduct with real world equipment, due to the danger it imposes on equipment and personnel.
TLP’s common baseline and tools allow instructors to track students through the entire spectrum of training, empowering them to identify and correct any learning deficiencies that arise. Additionally, it allows for remote teacher-student interactions. This is ideal where students are geographically separated, allowing them to receive quality support as if they were sitting in the same classroom as the instructor.
The Future is here!
Cubic’s ability to unify the science of learning with engineering prepares our servicemen and servicewomen to master the complexities of the tools of war they command.
TLP is about scale and efficiency and the ability to train sailors more quickly and effectively. At a time when global threats continue to rise, that’s a bottom-line advantage that makes TLP an essential part of any training solution.
More to follow!
