HTX Labs Awarded $1.7M US Air Force Contract

HTX Labs, developer of the EMPACT Immersive Learning Platform has been awarded a new $1.7 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) with the US Air Force (USAF) to enhance and operationalize EMPACT in support of training modernization.

EMPACT offers a suite of capabilities that enable users to create, scale, and sustain immersive learning programs, providing the critical digital infrastructure necessary to drive training evolution across the USAF.  These capabilities include hardware agnostic, low/no-code immersive content authoring tools coupled with a secure, cloud-based deployment infrastructure, with rich analytics capture and integration with complementary USAF systems.

HTX Labs will leverage this TACFI contract to expand EMPACT's ability to rapidly create and distribute interactive, immersive training, collaborating closely with Advanced Force Development Technologies (AFDT, AETC A9/Det23) to more broadly deploy EMPACT within the Air Force. In particular, HTX will focus on driving further adoption within Pilot Instructor Training (PIT) working with the 559th Flying Training Squadron (FTS) and the 12th Operational Group (OG) at Randolph Air Force Base (AFB).

Primary TACFI initiatives include a range of EMPACT features that will further drive immersive training adoption and usage within the USAF. These features include more robust offline support to allow access to immersive training without internet connectivity, instructor dashboard integration with EMPACT training simulations, advanced analytics visualizations with standards-based integration with learning management systems, and further expansion of the EMPACT T-6 immersive learning environment, providing more support specific to PIT.