FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1. What is DARWARS?
DARWARS is a DARPA-funded research project to accelerate the development and deployment of the next generation of training systems. These low-cost, mobile, web-centric, simulation-based systems will take advantage of the ubiquitous presence of the PC and of new technology, including multi-player games, virtual worlds, off-the-shelf PC simulations, intelligent agents, and on-line communities.
As part of the DARWARS project, which started in 2003, several advanced training systems have been developed as exemplars of what is possible. Early versions of two of these systems are already being deployed to meet urgent training needs in Iraq.
The project will produce an architectural framework, including a set of web services, tools, and system interface definitions that will facilitate the development of advanced training systems by all vendors and their deployment and use by instructors over a global network. The DARWARS framework is scalable; it will support training for individuals, teams, or teams of teams (involving hundreds of students at PCs all over the world interacting on a virtual battlefield). Training systems will be able to keep track of what each student does in the simulation in order to offer individual and group feedback.
The project will also create an on-line community of students, instructors and developers around the DARWARS family of training systems.
2. Who needs DARWARS?
DARWARS will enable the development of affordable training systems that address several identified military training problems, including team training, joint operations training, Reserves and Guard training, between-schoolhouse skill decay, last-minute training, and training during troop deployment. Because they are motivating to the student and are available anywhere, anytime, DARWARS training systems are the key to unparalleled training effectiveness.
3. What's the challenge that DARWARS is addressing?
The next generation of training systems will be accessible from PC's all over the world and will allow any number of students to practice together in the same simulated training environment. The DARPA DARWARS project is addressing many of the underlying conceptual and infrastructure problems that must be solved before these systems can be deployed. One set of challenges are pedagogical, such as how to map students