The Future of Pilot Training with LVC and Mixed Reality – Case Finnish Air Force

• Live-Virtual-Constructive (LVC) enables effective integration of the real and virtual worlds, allowing the simulation of large-scale or dangerous training scenarios in a secure way. This provides pilots with a new level of readiness before deployment.
• Mixed reality technology enables the creation of new, highly realistic immersive training scenarios that can easily be modified or repeated.
• Trainees equipped with HMDs can view a seamlessly blended mixed reality environment. Pilots can replicate the conditions of live flying, interacting with real cockpits, their own charts and documents, and virtual worlds.

The Finnish Air Force continuously seeks to deploy the most effective technologies available to provide the best possible fighter pilot training. As technologies improve, the competence requirements for pilots are also changing as cognitive skills are becoming more important. Pilot trainees must now manage different systems simultaneously, detect and analyze essential elements, and make decisions at a fast pace. How to effectively and realistically simulate this cognitive load as pilots train for complex air operations?

Finnish Air Force fighter pilots have been using a LVC training solution since 2018. To help develop this pioneering the LVC training system, the Finnish Air Force looked to Patria, the Finnish provider of defense, security and aviation training and technology solutions.

With LVC training, pilots train in an environment where live Hawk aircraft, physical simulators and computer modelling are all combined in a single training scenario. This means that the pilots who are flying in the air can see the same aircraft and virtually generated targets as the trainees in the physical simulators on the ground. The LVC system allows them to train either together side-by-side or against each other as part of the same training environment.

Furthermore, with an operator performance analytics system developed by Patria, the air force can monitor the stress levels and cognitive loads of pilot trainees during the exercise from physiological data, such as eye movements and heart rate variability. All flight and operator data can be reviewed in detail after each exercise, allowing efficient debriefing.

Varjo began collaborating with the Finnish Air Force, Patria and BI Simulations in the fall of 2020 to demonstrate the future of pilot training. Using Varjo’s virtual and mixed reality technology with human-eye resolution (over 70 pixels per degree), pilots can now distinguish even the smallest details in the cockpit and experience a highly photorealistic simulated training environment. The integrated eye tracking of the VR/XR headsets at <1-degree accuracy can also be used for collecting data on pilots’ eye movements and reactions for the operator analytics system.

Due to the initial success of integrating mixed reality technology to the LVC trainers, the Finnish Air Force is looking at other ways to incorporate the technology into future training scenarios. According to the Finnish Air Force, in the future most flight training is likely to be conducted in an environment combining live aircraft, simulators, and computer-generated players controlled by algorithms or artificial intelligence.

To deep dive into the possibilities that VR and XR technology can bring to pilot training and flight simulation, download our complimentary in-depth e-book guide.

Learn more:

• Finnish Air Force: “Flight training system ready for transition to HX era”
• Patria: “New technologies revolutionise fighter pilot training”
• Ebook: “VR and XR for Pilot Training and Flight Simulation”

Request a demo of Varjo’s XR/VR