Bring Game-Based Training to Life with Construct

I/ITSEC 2015 | What's New

In the modeling and simulation industry, there is a constant call to increase the level of realism in the synthetic environment and the immersion perceived by its human inhabitants (the trainees). This call is perhaps loudest from those who use game-based training for military applications. Often, the funding of advances in gaming technology is at odds with decreasing training budgets. That's why ASTi developed Construct.

Construct is a product that breathes life into synthetic environments by automating game avatars and simulation entities to create intelligent, voice-enabled entities that understand human speech, and behave and respond like the human counterparts they're intended to represent. ASTi achieves this elevated degree of realism through context-aware and highly accurate speech recognition technology alongside high-quality, tunable synthetic voices and a generous portion of artificial intelligence.

ASTi's speech recognition software is refined to deal with human English speakers with a variety of accents and tuned for optimal performance in specific parlances, like Air Traffic Control, Call for Fire, and Close Air Support, to name a few.

When Construct is added to a simulated environment, context-specific radio chatter fills the airwaves as the newly-intelligent agents come to life. These synthetic entities respond to each other, as well as the trainees, with voices that can be tuned to represent males or females with a variety of accents, and also have adjustable pitch and cadence.

Increased realism is, however, only one of the many benefits that Construct offers. By animating avatars and automating tasks, Construct relieves expert staff from performing non-critical role playing and reduces the human manpower required for realistic and effective training. Fewer people to coordinate means lower overall training costs and more flexibility in scheduling training events.

While more realistic and effective training games benefit the trainees, Construct's underlying technology also offers a number of benefits for the commands responsible for coordinating and executing these training programs:

  • The low-overhead Construct toolkit allows scenario developers to create automated, synthetic and context-aware radio traffic for live and virtual training.
  • A documented API and open, standards-based interfaces ease integration with government frameworks and 3rd party tools.
  • Administrators use a standard web browser to access Construct's management features making its interface non-proprietary and OS portable.
  • Validated interoperability across all major DoD training initiatives (LVC-IA, DMO, ADVTE, NCTE, NASMP, JNTC, etc.) and DIS/HLA compliance ensure that Construct plays nice with existing training and simulation infrastructures.
  • Construct boasts proven compatibility with constructive simulations, environment generators and image generators, including: One Semi-Automated Forces (OneSAF), MÄK VR-Forces, MetaVR Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG), Battle Simulations Modern Air Combat Environment (MACE) and the Common Image Generator Interface (CIGI).
  • ASTi's cloud-based deployment option allows Construct to deliver its features automatically and provide training to the point of need, regardless of time or location.



Screen captures from our I/ITSEC 2015 unmanned aircraft system (UAS) demo using VBS3. Click to view a larger version.