US Army Exercises Option on UH-72A LAKOTA VMT

Yesterday, the DiSTI Corporation, a leading provider of graphical user interface software and customised 3D virtual maintenance training solutions, announces the award of option year 2 of Interim Contractor Support (ICS) from the US Army for the UH-72A LAKOTA Virtual Maintenance Trainer (VMT).

The initial U$4.4 million contract on the UH-72A included the development of a VMT to provide students the ability to familiarise and practice maintenance tasks in an interactive 3D game-like envrionment. The delivery included twelve interactive student workstations with a networked Instructor station, an additional “hangar” workstation collocated with a hardware-based trainer, and a “reach-back” training capability to deploy virtual training content on hand-held mobile devices.

The trainer was successfully implemented at the Western Army National Guard Aviation Training Site (WAATS) in Marana, AZ/USA in early 2016 and graduated its first class of trainees that June. Since the UH-72A is an Army variant of a commercial helicopter, the VMT is built such that students learn to maintain the aircraft to FAA standards.

“This programme was one of the first that DiSTI delivered as a Prime Contractor to the US Army for our VMT solutions,” Joe Swinski, President of DiSTI, explained. “The cornerstone of the program was based on our proven software toolchain called VE Studio and our patented end-to-end solution for requirements analysis and traceability, design, development, and testing. What is especially unique about this solution is that we have provided the Army the ability to conduct training on large screens, desktop size screens, as well as mobile devices. In addition, their solution has also been designed to be deployed on Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) platforms. As the Army looks to take advantage of the new capabilities that these technologies offer, their current UH-72A trainer can be easily expanded. There is a tremendous amount of interest within the Defense and Commercial industries to use AR and VR technology to improve training and we are able to deliver that capability today.”