I/ITSEC 2024: Day 4 Walkabout and Meeting Impressions

Shipboard Training and Simulators

The maritime operating domain remains an inherently dangerous and challenging environment – from entering and leaving port to transiting on the open ocean.

It was interesting to engage with several industry teams on the I/ITSEC exhibition floor and learn of the quickening focus of navies, coast guards and commercial maritime organizations to include training devices in their crews’ learning processes. 

Dr. Jeffrey Hawkins, managing director of Australia-based Pivot Maritime International (Pivot), told the author his customer list is increasing in both markets. Of special note were his commercial shipping customers, to include Maersk, Carnival Cruise Line and others. 

The scope of training supported by Pivot’s devices have ranged from learning basic ship handling skills to rehearsing strategies in real-time for entering port with degraded equipment. 

As this article was being prepared for posting 3D perception (3DP) announced its selection by Aero Simulation, Inc. (ASI) as a visual display system partner for the US Navy’s rapidly evolving Navigation, Seamanship, and Shiphandling Trainer (NSST) program. 

NSST was launched in response to a rash of collisions involving loss of lives and injuries on the sea service’s ships. The overarching NSST program is supported by a BGI/ASI Joint Venture, aimed at modernizing the Navy’s existing training infrastructure across nine fleet training centers globally.

This contract provides one tech deep dive on the underpinning technologies being used in NSST and, by extension, other maritime devices. In this case, 3DP is supplying its Cetus line of maritime visual display systems to enhance the training capabilities of the NSST program.

The Cetus systems provide high-resolution, wide field of view displays optimized for the unique challenges faced by diverse naval vessels. An NSST prototype viewed at the ASI (Defense Maritime Solutions/Wärtsilä North America) booth used Wärtsilä software and was further supported by Aechelon and Unreal Engine.

VSTEP, another maritime training device provider at I/ITSEC, said use cases for their simulators are to better prepare aspiring mariners and provide mediation and refresher training for some industry veterans. Kongsberg Digital – Maritime Simulation and Virtual Marine were also present with simulator offerings for this market.

By the Numbers?

AI, data, digital twin. No doubt about it, 2024 was the year these three technology thrusts continued to rapidly evolve in and beyond military training.

Here at I/ITSEC delegates heard these technologies frequently mentioned in conference presentations and exhibition floor discussions.

So, how popular were these learning enablers with one section of the community – I/ITSEC exhibitors. An informal walk down several exhibition floor aisles noted AI, data and digital twin were on the minds of diverse industry companies and teams to the point they were listed on booth banners and other signage.

So, here’s my informal tally of what I saw in a partial and random walkabout of a portion of the space: “AI” on five booths’ signage (Aptima, Workera, Discovery Machine, Inc., Esri and GitLab); “data” prominent on three booths’ signage (Oversight, Dataunitor and VRAI); and “digital twin” on the signage of two booths (Esri and KAI).

This was by far not a scientific, rigorous survey, but illustrates, in part, how many companies were prepared and focused to speak with the assembled on these technologies.