ECS Awarded BAA Applied Research Contract

The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center (CCDC-SC) has awarded Engineering & Computer Simulations (ECS) a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract for “Basic and Applied Research to Setup and Operate the Modular Medical Environment (MME) Testbed.” This three-year project is part of the U.S. Army’s Synthetic Training Environment (STE) and serves as a testbed for integration of combat medicine training solutions and platforms, focusing on existing as well as emerging technology trends. Shane Taber, ECS Chief Officer of Technology; Nathan Ginos, ECS Vice President of Development; and Madison Quinn, ECS Research Analyst, will lead the project for ECS.

Ginos explains: “This ambitious project is intended as an iterative process for rapid prototyping and testing, to inform decisions more quickly for what the Army should (or should not) pursue in these emerging technologies. This is a joint effort between our team and CCDC-SC on staying on the leading edge of technology while also making sure that our Soldiers have the best medical training we can provide.”

STE MME’s vision is to revolutionize Army training by merging live, virtual, constructive and gaming platforms into an interoperable training experience that provides real-life immersion for combat training. The MME serves as a testbed for integration of combat medicine training solutions and platforms, focusing on existing and emerging technology trends.

Taber adds: “This is an exciting and truly unique research project that enables us to work collaboratively with the customer to actively identify and pursue cutting-edge technology, then test it for applicability to military medical training. What makes this project special is how the Army is investing in innovation and embracing agile methodologies to rapidly find solutions to problems, test them, and use those findings to inform their Army’s decisions of where to invest additional effort and applied research.”

ECS has partnered with SIMETRI, Inc. for this project. Together, they are working with other vendors, integrators, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Future work is planned to evaluate medical part-task trainers, physiology models, tissue characterization, haptic technology, and virtual simulations to investigate both user acceptance and learning transfer.

Ed Stadler, SIMETRI VP of Engineering, states: “MME provides a significant opportunity to not only explore mix modality medical training solutions but also include STE as part of the initial architecture, greatly reducing integration time and giving us the perfect data-driven environment to compare competing and evolving technologies. This project will develop and integrate multiple complex tech solutions and has the potential to drastically elevate individual and small teams medical training while providing essential hooks for STE integration.