Army Helps MAK Make Real Sims

Recently, the US Army awarded three military contracts at about $100,000 each to MAK Technologies. The contracts were awarded so that MAK could develop some of the technologies that the Army is pushing to incorporate into its simulation training.

The first contract issued through the US Army Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM) and the US Government's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is for the development of software tools to help translate the language between two military protocols.

Recently, the Army's initiative is for a new High Level Architecture (HLA), which will become the new standard for all Department of Defense military simulations. An old standard, Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS), will be phased out by 1999 but the translation software should make this transition easier, cheaper, and much faster then rewriting entire simulation programs.

The second contract will log the events that record data in a simulation for later review or evaluation of training exercises.

In the third contract, the Department of Defense has hired MAK to incorporate the HLA technology into the upcoming game Spearhead, MAK's upcoming tank simulation title. The DOD will receive a simulation variant of the title with a more technical feel to it.