Simulation and Training Technology

Download Quad Charts of Simulation and Training Technology Projects

Two compelling needs underpin TATRC's Simulation and Training Technology research portfolio:

1. DOD requirement to train 100,000 military health care personnel annually
2. Increasing national interest in reducing medical errors. This spans from point of wounding, combat casualty care to surgical care given in fully equipped fixed medical facilities. An Integrated Research Team, convened in Feb 2000, developed an integrated strategic plan.

1. PC-Based Interactive Multimedia
2. Digitally Enhanced Mannequins
3. Part-Task Trainers
4. Total Immersion Virtual Reality

Several funding sources are being invested: congressionally sponsored, Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR), innovation funds, even Dual Use funds. Over 150 separate projects - some small, some larger - have been conducted with a cumulative investment since 1999 of over $60 million, making it the DOD's largest investor in S&TT research. The strategy is to identify enabling technologies, mature them into components, integrate those components into simulation-based training systems, and validate them to determine the degree to which they transfer skills learned via simulation to the practice of actual patient care.

1. Continue identifying and developing enabling technologies
2. Continue training transfer studies
3. Support open source / architecture standards
4. Facilitate convergences between S&TT research areas and surgical robotics, education and entertainment, and virtual reality applied to behavioral health
5. Emphasize transition of products to relevant military and private sector end user communities