Innovative Debrief Solutions for Mission Training & Simulation: making fighter pilot training more effective

To enhance and improve the quality of mission training and simulation for fighter pilots, TNO and the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) investigate various innovative debrief concepts. In this paper we will describe our work on Innovative Debrief Solutions for Mission Training through Distributed Simulation (MTDS). Mission training and simulation put high demands on various (use of) analysis and debrief tools. This is even more the case in distributed debriefs. Also, with the increasing options for data-capture and retrieval in combination with the increasing number of on-board systems, sensors and other capabilities of modern fighter jets, the challenges arise how to maintain or even increase debriefing effectiveness and efficiency, without creating an overload of information. Therefore, an important question in our research is how to (re-)present the right information, at the right time in the right format to the operational user. Today, most operational debrief systems focus mainly on capturing and replicating information in exactly the same manner as presented in on-board systems. In this paper we argue against this paradigm and propagate a data-fused approach. We will present and discuss the results of our first trials with IDE-FIX, the Innovative Debrief Environment, used in our research to investigate, demonstrate and “FIX” new debrief concepts. Special focus is on adaptive information representation in a novel manner and the visualization of complex information in a user-centric and mission-specific manner.