Impressions of I/ITSEC, Day One

Rick Adams, FRAeS, Editor, MS&T, spent the first afternoon of I/ITSEC 2021 rolling virtual vehicles upside down.

Knowing there could be long queues throughout the week, I headed for two of the most popular new demos early.

The first, in the Brightline booth, was the NOVA motion system from New Zealand startup Eight360 ( which we feature in the current issue of MS&T). After Brightline VP Products & Partnerships Robert Dough strapped me in and adjusted the VR headset, I was presented with a virtual heavy-vehicle obstacle driving course. After getting used to the feel of the wheel, I headed for the simulated moguls and hills, testing the reaction of the untethered sphere surrounding me and, frankly, attempting to roll the device upside down – because it can. Brightline is the US partner for NOVA, and plans to incorporate it into a Cloud-based simulation as a service offering.

At Varjo, the Finnish company which has raced to the front of the VR/MR headset pack, Global Head of Simulation and Training John Burwell, who has been in the S&T business for more than 30 years, told me that key components of their professional VR-3 and XR-3 systems include the high-quality, non-Fresnel lenses and automatic adjustment for interpupillary distance. After a demo of the VR-3, which is the device used by VRM Switzerland in the first VR helicopter flight trainer approved by a regulator authority, I strapped on the mixed-reality XR-3 headset, which enables both a virtual display and the ability, through cameras, to see your own hands, the cockpit avionics, kneeboard, etc. in 20/20 clarity. I’d have spent more time cruising around the MVRsimulation (formerly Meta VR) eastern Spain database, doing the occasional barrel roll, but let some other folks have a little fun too.

CAE invited us into a private demo of their new Prodigy image generator, Unreal Engine-based, successor to their proprietary Medallion, for fighter and fast-jet training applications. The visuals are stunning at 4K and the company says the system will accommodate 8K. We also had a glance at the company’s new rotary-wing Trax, an ecosystem which incorporates the CAE Sprint VR trainer to enable self-paced learning in an immersive, high-fidelity virtual environment.

By the way, CAE’s massive booth occupies more than 6,000 square feet, perhaps the largest ever at an I/ITSEC. And they have over 200 employees to staff it, well more than the entire company size of many of the other exhibitors in the hall.

Fred Hartman, I/ITSEC 2021 Fellow, reminisced through the past 50 years or so of modeling, simulation and analysis history, including memorable programs such as Training Transformation under Dr. John Mayberry and the forgettable JSIMS (Joint Simulation System), which Hartman said suffered from underfunding and delegated – rather than central – responsibility. The DARPA PAL project (Personalized Assistant that Learns), an early attempt at AI about 15 years ago, was eventually incorporated into Apple’s Siri consumer device. Today, said Hartman, M&S as a service, Cloud access to models and data, and AI “offer significant opportunities to conduct training exercises and mission rehearsals in a more agile manner.”

While the presentations and exhibits functioned as was normal pre-pandemic, the Orlando infrastructure is not as well-oiled: vending machines that don’t vend, trolleys and shuttle buses delayed, hotels showing their age.

In the countdown to exhibits opening, the sounds of beeping forklifts and the last-minute tech chatter to coax demos to life were a pleasant reminder of the unique buzz of in-person events. But with the new Omicron and old Delta virus variants lurking, let’s hope this respite can continue.