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Real-time Physics Effects Library (RPEL)
Problem Statement and Objectives
The Army spends billions of dollars each year on live training. Live training costs include maintaining training facilities, transporting Soldiers to those facilities, buying and maintaining vehicles and training devices, and staffing support personnel. Virtual training, by comparison, is far less expensive, much more portable, and capable of providing training with effects that are difficult or impossible to replicate in a live training environment.
The Army RDECOM STTC conducted a study to determine the usefulness of multi-player games for asymmetric warfare training. The study found that games can teach Soldiers judgment and decision-making skills and help them develop situational awareness. In turn, games are able to prepare troops not only for the more expensive live drills, but also for actual deployment. However, the study noted a few deficiencies of games as training devices: one being the lack of simulated injuries (wounds sustained during small unit conflicts can have a significant impact on the actions of Soldiers), the other being the lack of physical effects on terrain, vehicles, and buildings. We are designing the Real-time Physics Effects Library (RPEL) to fill these gaps.
Results and Benefits
Funded by RDECOM STTC, RPEL provides fundamental capabilities that a game engine or simulation tool needs to integrate real-time high-fidelity weapons effects. Soon RPEL will be able to further support Army training and mission rehearsal by modeling human casualties from IEDs and detailed damage to terrain surface and terrain features.
The system works by processing incoming events, such as an IED detonation near a vehicle, and modeling the fragment flyout from the IED and the effects of the fragments on the vehicle skin and internal components. RPEL modifies the vehicle geometry and texture, cutting holes in the vehicle skin and adding burn textures to indicate damage from the fragments. A game engine can make direct calls into the programming interface and render the effects produced by RPEL.
In addition to vehicle damage, RPEL is also able to model the effects of a munitions blast against a building. The system uses models to determine the correct fracture lines for the building material. A load path collapse algorithm determines which building elements collapse as loads are redistributed. RPEL modifies the geometry of the building model in real-time to simulate the effect of the fracture and collapse of structural elements, resulting in a realistic representation of building damage.
For more information on RPEL, contact:
Primary Point of Contact:
Jeff Lyons
Central Florida Division
407-823-9121, x236
e-mail: jlyons@ara.com
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