MACE – UAS

MACE and UAS Training

MACE is ideally suited for standalone or distributed UAS training stations. When combined with MetaVR’s Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG), MACE can easily provide both pilot and sensor operator training stations. A typical configuration is one or more training stations each comprised of both a pilot and sensor operator station, along with another MACE instance functioning as the Instructor Operator Station (IOS). One IOS can generate a mission that can be shared with many UAS training stations, including the ability to make dynamic inputs during scenario execution.

Robust UAS Training Content

MACE has a very large entity library, including both military and civilian entities that can quickly be added to your UAS training scenario. MACE’s energy-based flight models drive the UAS’ flight as the UAS flies from waypoint to waypoint, or as the pilot makes commanded changes to airspeed, heading or altitude. The camera can ground or entity track, and VRSG supports visual, EO and IR (white-hot and black-hot) camera filters. Weapons employment from the UAS is fully supported as well, and users can even add their own UAS platforms and weapons to the MACE entity library.

Detailed Entity Articulation

MACE supports an array of features designed to make it easy for the user to quickly produce realistic UAS training scenarios:

• Support for DIS articulations and appearance bits (for example, a human raising a weapon to indicate hostile intent)
• Support for VRSG animations (for example, tell an entity to dig or raise a cell phone to his ear)
• Support for entity attachments (for example, tell a human to enter or exit a vehicle)

MACE – UAS

Videos of UAS training scenarios using MACE and VRSG

This video shows MACE’s ability to create realistic UAV training scenarios. Shown here with MetaVR’s Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG), MACE’s pathfinding algorithm alleviates the need for the user to explicitly route each entity. In this video, a human is told to enter a building, and automatically finds a path into that building. MACE is also generating the UAV and the user is controlling the UAV camera via MACE’s programmable joystick support.

This video shows a UAS training scenario using MACE and MetaVR’s Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG). In the video, the MACE user follows a pack of donkeys up a road, towards an insurgent compound, with the UAS camera. Near the end of the video, the user launches an AGM-114 Hellfire from the UAS at a vehicle patrolling the compound.