Category: Aerospace & Defence

LVC Simulation for the Indian Army

2/6/2017

This blog post covers how emergent gaming tools and technologies have been used to make high-fidelity defence simulation, including LVC (Live, Virtual and Constructive) simulation which is the way ahead for most military simulators.

The LVC Simulation was done atop a high-fidelity terrain reconstruction which was mapped in-house via a Drone operation. The high-fidelity, one-to-one scale terrain already had about 30times the resolution available from Google earth, and was then made interactive and compliant with an LVC Simulation architecture where troops and tanks could train simultaneously. The concept was successfully demonstrated and highly appreciated, as part of CII & Indian Army’s Seminar on Simulation, conducted by the Army Design Bureau.

This is part 2 and concluding post on the entire exercise, and part 1 covers the aerial mapping of the terrain via a drone here.

High fidelity synthetic terrain recreation

The attached graphic illustrates the entire pipeline of constructing the high-fidelity terrain for the simulation exercise. Major parts are further explained below.

Primary processing
1. The first level of processing is to take the drone camera payload imagery and drone flight data. By syncing the clocks of both, we have accurate position and orientation of each imagery, and then based on SFM (structure from motion), we can recreate the terrain below (please refer to blog post 1)
2. The output data which we receive then, is a height map (Digital elevation map), a triangulated mesh, and an orthomosaic texture.
3. These, by themselves, need further processing to make them game/simulation ready.
Secondary processing
1. Since game engines have their own terrain features, then either using the height map data from above, we can create the game engine’s terrain, or import that triangulated mesh as a substitute for ground, including LOD (level of detail support). An intermediate processing requires the ground to be separated from elements like vegetation, civil structures, or any element which grows/stands atop the terrain.
2. Builtup and vegetation elements then need to be reconstructed atop the terrain – if the same is available in the library (which is increasing getting populated) of geo-typical assets like builtup structures of urban and rural localities of the area, and vegetation, which again is geo-typical of the terrain type.
Tertiary processing
1. Finally, all the dynamics are added – example, collision bodies on terrain and superstructures, including wind/weather simulation.
2. Lighting is setup to reflect the time of day and weather.
3. Characters, and vehicles are added, including AI for automatic navigation and movement.
4. And finally, application and user specific elements like networking, graphical user interfaces etc are added.

The image below, shows the synthetic terrain (virtual) constructed via the above pipeline.

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How we superseded Army's expectations with a Drone Op

1/23/2017

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This is a two part blog post. Part 1 talks about the background to the entire exercise, the Part 2 talks about the simulation exercise which was built on top of the entire Drone Op generated data.

The background to this entire operation were our simulation activities that we were doing for Defence. Our past experience had mostly been with the Indian Air Force, and recently had also done some aviation simulation works for the Indian Navy. However when we demonstrated the same to the Army, the feedback given was ‘Well, all this simulation, terrain recreation etc is fine for aircrafts flying thousands of feet above the ground, but we need something which can give a soldier a feeling of if he has the boots on the ground’. This needed a very highly accurate ground mapping which required two elements – a digital elevation map (known as DEM) and ground texture.

Now DEMs were available, but those in the public domain had extremely low resolutions, only suited for very high-altitude passes, like those available from NASA and Japan Space Systems. Higher resolution DEM imagery is either available only to military (including ISRO’s own DEM data – but we didn’t have access to that), or very expensive to buy for commercial use.

Google earth (including Pro) pack – while allowed you to export imagery, it didn’t allow you to export the elevation, and even imagery had to be stamped with Google earth’s logo. And the resolution wasn’t good that we wanted anyway.

The target that had been give to us for the textures resolution was – 10 cm per pixel. A massively ambitious target. But audacious goals only embolden us to achieve them. We decided, we’d get our DEM via an aerial survey.

Choice of platform

In order to do an aerial DEM, we obviously needed an unmanned aerial system (UAS), or commonly known as – Drone. There were many choices and factors

Fixed wing (like your typical aircraft configuration) or Rotory
Within rotory – tricopter/quadcopter/hexacopter/octacopter
Choice of frame – plastic, carbon fibre etc.
Choice of motors and propellers, and electronic speed drives to run them.
Choice of controller – This was a major choice, with top two contenders being DJI vs APM (Ardupilot). This is like a choice between Apple (proprietary, closed system) vs Android (open source system)
Payload – which cameras to take, including whether to use gimbals for stabilization or not.
Final processing – after the data has been captured, how to process it and convert it into useful format ?

Learning to fly

The first drone we had, we got a pre-assembled one based on the APM platform. The supplier had assured us that it was in ready to fly configuration, and you only had to power it up, and it was fit to fly. It wasn’t so easy as it turned out.

While we were very careful in powering it up, and had gone through all the relevant manuals, including some drone Sims, the drone just kept going rogue. We were unable to fly it either manually, or using the automatic mode. And with every crash, we had part breakdowns – most notably of propellers, and some cuts and bruises from prop hits.

We got to know the local drone parts supply ecosystems pretty well, which was vital to our later exercises. What we couldn’t get – we made. Our 3D printer was an invaluable tool, making prop-guards or coupling mechanisms so that we could fit those payloads which weren’t otherwise fitting on our Drone’s chasis.

But we still needed to get better at flying a drone, and for this, we got a miniscule quadcopter and the rotory flying guide – and learnt to fly this very gently – starting with a hop up, and then touch down, to eventually making it go from Pt. A to Pt. B as we wanted it to, mustering up our confidence in handling the actual operation.

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How the Indian Air Force got its game

1/6/2017

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Guardians of the Skies, the official game of the Indian Air Force was launched about two years ago, and has gone on to be downloaded more than 3 million times, and won a couple of awards. Here is looking back at its story, which not only captures how it came into being and what went behind the scenes, but also a brief 'coming-of-age' of the small team which made it.

You can get the game for Android, iOS and Windows.

Why do we make games ?

Games are supposed to be an escape from the reality, in a world of dreams. Where we can be what we wanted to be before we got caught up in the daily grind.

When we started to make games, we had to ask ourselves - what do we make games about ?

If our players were to escape and role-play as some ideal character.. who could those be ?

Who are our role models ?
Who safeguards our existense from external threats ? That our institutions are preserved and fundamental rights not under danger.
Who are our Heroes ?

The answer was simple - the soldiers. And so we decided to make games on Indian military history.

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ACE-VR: Virtual Reality fighter aircraft game

3/31/2016

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Dear Readers..

On behalf of team Threye, allow us to share our first Virtual Reality game, something which we've been working across the year 2015-16, coming from the genre of aircraft simulators, you can enjoy missions like takeoff from aircraft carrier, land on sea/ground, engage enemy aircrafts etc.

The current aircraft and missions available are based on a Mig29, it is planned to add more aircrafts, and more scenarios in future.

Meanwhile, please grab the beta here and give it a spin. For best experience, use a VR HMD and a joystick, but it works on standard PC with keyboard and gamepad as well.

ACE-VR_Beta.zip