Canberra to lead military's virtual tech project in defence deal

A room in one of Barton's leafy streets became the cockpit for a pilot flying above a virtual Williamtown air force base as multinational defence company Lockheed Martin showed off technology to be ramped up in Australia's military.

Lockheed Martin Australia systems integrator, Vikas Nayak, demonstrating the virtual technology in Canberra.

The new project to develop the simulator will be led from Canberra after Defence Industry Minister Linda Reynolds on Wednesday signed a contract she said would transform the Australian Defence Force's training for personnel.

Canberra will share in 100 new jobs predicted from the deal, which is expected to break constraints limiting the military's simulated training to 10 activities per year and stopping it from meeting growing demand.

In a demonstration at Lockheed Martin's offices in Barton, a display screen became a window on a pilot's flight above a computer-generated Williamtown, NSW as he sat at the controls in a corner of the room, wearing a headset.

Senator Reynolds said the federal government would spend $897 million on the project, which would grow the military's annual virtual training activities to 50 by 2020 and 210 five years later. It would bring simulated training to the defence force's joint operations for the first time, and allow virtual exercises with overseas militaries.

"Increased complexities experienced by the ADF personnel and operations throughout the world means there is a growing need for our servicemen and women to conduct realistic, high-end warfighting training," she said.

"The fact is that Defence can simply no longer meet those requirements solely within the traditional live training. It is progressively utilising simulation to meet this demand."

Senator Reynolds said the technology, developed in Australia and managed by Lockheed Martin with Calytrix Technologies and NEC Australia, would let defence personnel rehearse operations and allow the military to write better exercises.

The government contract with Lockheed Martin is expected to let the Australian Defence Force learn from the experience of the US military, which has a similar system. The defence force will be able to connect to and disconnect from the systems of other militaries.

Lockheed Martin's David Fallon said the technology would be a world-first, combining many simulated training platforms. The technology is expected to be Australia's largest networked simulation system.

"It will see the ability to connect in our training to our regional and coalition partners in future training," he said.

Air Marshal Warren McDonald said the technology would make defence personnel mentally familiar with environments before they physically conducted operations.

"The world is complex and we have a lot of complex equipment entering Defence. So to truly understand how that complexity works in the environment, we need to simulate it," he said.

"Long since gone are the days of people moving things around on a board."