press release
Making its AWE debut, ST Engineering Antycip joined forces with MAK and data analytics firm Cervus to demonstrate the power of its COTS software at the prestigious event.
ST Engineering Antycip is delighted to have been invited to participate in the 2021 Army Warfighting Experiment, the most recent edition of the British Army’s flagship innovation experimentation programme, in partnership with Cervus, a veteran-owned data analytics company.
A prestigious showcase of some of the most cutting-edge defence innovations, the Army Warfighting Experiment (AWE) seeks to build relationships with industry partners to help the army prepare for the technologically advanced warfare of the future. AWE 2021 took place in October 2021 at the Ministry of Defence (MoD)’s Salisbury Plain Training Area in Wiltshire, in southern England.
While 2021 marked the first time ST Engineering Antycip, a leading global provider of simulation, analysis, modelling, display and virtual-reality solutions, has participated in the AWE programme, Cervus has taken part in the annual event since its inception in 2017 (and previously in its predecessor event, the Urban Experiment, or URBEX, series). The two companies had worked together in the past, joining forces in 2019 for phase one of the US Marine Corps’ Wargaming Capability project, before ST Engineering Antycip was invited to AWE 2021 following engagement with the MoD’s SERAPIS research programme.
Cervus’ head of sales and marketing, Mark Whitehouse, explains the AWE partners’ respective roles: “Antycip brings the simulation engines and the expertise in running large-scale simulated activities; Cervus uses our experience to create the scenarios and metrics to measure performance at the beginning of the activity, then takes all the data created as the activities are run. Later, we exploit that data through our AI-powered analytics engine, Hive 2.0, to provide insights and secure an advantage for the front-line user.”
Specifically, the solution shown at AWE combined Hive 2.0 with MAK ONE, MAK Technologies' whole-world synthetic training environment, to show the MoD how the objectives of the British Army’s Collective Training Transformation Programme (CTTP) could be delivered now with commercial off-the-shelf systems (COTS) already on the market. “We were showing how ‘SME to the Three’” – small and medium-sized enterprises, which are subject matter experts, working in a single measurement environment – “could work to generate far bigger effects than the companies that were creating them,” adds Mark.
For ST Engineering Antycip, the Army Warfighting Experiment gave the simulation specialist unprecedented access to end users in a non-programme environment, as well as providing it with a unique audience from which to gather information on the “usability and robustness of products in a real ‘operational’ environment”, explains its UK area manager, Chris Waldron.
ST Engineering’s role at AWE included setting up a distributed training simulation in MAK ONE with live tanks, weapons and soldiers, and connecting into synthetic soldiers and weapons, as well as supporting and engaging on a constructive MAK VR-Forces simulation.
The ST Engineering Antycip team hails the successful collaboration between the two teams, which they say share a “like-minded” attitude, and praises Cervus’ “can-do” approach. The feedback from users of the MAK One-Hive 2.0 system, as well as a number of senior military personnel who visited the Cervus stand, was similarly positive, she adds, with praise for the flexibility and upgradeability of the solution. “We had great feedback from the BGHQ [battle group headquarters] planning staff of 5 RIFLES,” adds Whitehouse, “who engaged closely with the system and could immediately see the benefits of the systems working together as they were.”
The AWE partnership between Cervus, MAK Technologies and ST Engineering Antycip showcased both the power of localised and enhanced COTS technologies and the benefits of cooperation between like-minded industry collaborators. “The more we work together, the more we can see the mutual benefits: SME to the Three!” he concludes. “We are bringing COTS systems into the mainstream and are showing how the combination of small bands of determined experts can unsettle the large competition while keeping the overheads, and therefore the price, down. We are agile enough to get the user need addressed rapidly without trying to force a round peg into a square hole, as many of the larger systems will do.”
“ST Engineering Antycip was proud to have the opportunity to show how emerging technologies, backed by our industry leading expertise and technical support, can help armed forces prepare for the conflicts of the future,” adds Waldron. “We are grateful to our valued partner Cervus, as well as the British Army for their feedback and engagement with the software. We look forward to working together again in future.
"Building on the success of AWE 2021, we are looking forward to getting to grips with the challenges being set by the AWE team for this coming year at today's introductory briefings.”
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