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A few months back, Talkibie featured an article about the uses of Nintendo’s Wii console for rehabilitation for U.S. soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another recent report explored the use of online training programs for developing soft skills like communication, language, and management techniques. Now, we’ve learned of a military training tool that combines the worof gaming with the development of people skills. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded the development of a training game called DARWARS Ambush NK!, which allows U.S. soldiers to expand their soft skills in an exciting and entertaining environment.

Video games and military training go hand-in-hand. From first-person shooters, which allow gamers to improve their marksmanship and practice stealth, to Massively Multi-Player Online Gaming, which encourages teamwork and coordination, the skills needed to be a successful gamer often mirror those needed to work within a military unit. Military and police organizations have long used gaming-style training courses to help members develop their physical abilities, but DARWARS Ambush NK! is aimed to give soldiers the mental stamina and communication under pressure that will help soldiers interact with locals in war zones.

A jointly-funded project from DARPA, U.S. Joint Forces Command, and the U.S Marine Corps Program Manager for Training Systems, the game is developed by BBN Technologies, a regular contributor to DARPA projects. Ambush is set up as a multi-player simulation game, where up to 64 players can interact over a computer network. Though it is internet capable, the military units using the training program choose to play over a closed LAN for security reasons. Though a player’s perspective is that of a first-person shooter like in Halo or Call of Duty, Ambush NK! is meant to give soldiers the skills to deal with complicated communication challenges in places like Iraq or Afghanistan.

As one of lead scientists on the project, Dr. Elaine Raybourn told Baseline magazine, “We are talking about training for nonkinetic engagement - interpersonal communication, negotiation skills, and interpersonal rapport. The goal is to make soldier’s better thinkers and communicators under stress.” The “nonkinetic” aspect of the skill-building is what’s truly innovative about Ambush NK!. Soldiers have plenty of access to appropriate training for the physical aspect of their jobs, and DARWARS hopes to expand their competencies to help them better interact with locals in war zones. Scenarios for the players are designed to help them bridge local customs, train local peacekeepers and police, and build relationships with the community in which they serve. Perhaps the most innovative part of the technology is that it is designed to support user-generated scenarios, allowing training personnel and commanding officers to augment the game when needed.

Aside from the design elements of first-person shooters, Ambush NK! also pulls inspiration from virtual worlds like Second Life. Soldiers who use the game create avatars and communicate with each other during the online training exercises. This helps the units who will serve together to train in a realistic environment and develop superb teamwork. Instructors can also jump in, and like in virtual worlds, can change the scenarios and monitor their team’s progress.

DARWARS Ambush NK! has four main objectives, which are stated on their website:

• Varied - Giving individuals and groups real practice across a wide range of skills.
• Safe - Creating opportunities to exercise critical decision-making and communication skills in an environment where it’s safe to make mistakes and learn from them.
• Available - Making appropriate training available instantly to anyone, anywhere.
• Engaging - Making training so engaging that our forces choose to train, opting to come back again and again to practice and hone skills.

These goals are designed to help soldiers not only develop skills when they’re safely stationed at U.S. bases, but also meet the continuous training needs of those stationed overseas. The hope is that public relations disasters with civilians, which have plagued all the branches of the military in the Iraq war, will be avoided by giving the average soldier the skills he or she needs to deal with the public.

DARWARS Ambush NK! hopes to train 20,000 soldiers per year, and it will be tested first by the U.S. Army. The focus on soft skills such as communication, negotiation, and cultural awareness will likely be a useful addition to the tools currently used by U.S. military personnel deployed in war zones. DARWARS expects to eventually make the code for their projects open source, which would further increase military’s ability to adapt Ambush NK! for specific situations. With this type of excellence in training, hopefully our soldiers will be able to interact peacefully with civilian populations and encourage political stability in conflict zones.

Monday, February 25th, 2008 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

By Haley January Eckels