by Serious Simulations | Aug 15, 2022 | Serious News
Image provided by Getty Images (DanielBendjy)
Two TV spots paid off for Serious Simulations — literally.
By Alex Soderstrom – OBJ Staff Writer & Orlando Inno Reporter
August 15, 2022, 11:07am EDT Updated 08/15/2022 2:51 pm
Chris Chambers appeared on Orlando news stations last September to promote his tech firm’s innovative training grenades — not knowing the U.S. Army was watching.
News stations Fox 35 Orlando and WFTV both aired interviews with Chambers, CEO of Orlando-based Serious Simulations LLC, and demonstrations of the company’s “sim grenades.” Chambers and Serious Simulations employees showed how the realistic grenade “explodes” by emitting sound and flashes of light. At the time of the interview, Serious Simulations had recently won a contract to provide the grenades to a federal agency for training.
After the interviews, Chambers got a call from an unexpected organization: the U.S. Army.
The Army operates a contracting command in Orlando, often considered the world capital for military training and simulation, that awards more than $2 billion annually in contracts and awards. The lack of a safe and realistic way to simulate grenade use in live training long bedeviled the Army and militaries around the world. The news channel spotlights on Serious Simulations’ patented grenade device caught the attention of the Army, which reached out to the small business about a contract opportunity.
Those TV spots paid off for Serious Simulations — literally. In March, the Army Contracting Command Orlando awarded Serious Simulations a contract worth up to $2.8 million to prototype simulated hand grenades, mines and similar devices. If the firm presents the Army with an acceptable prototype, Serious Simulations may begin mass production of the simulated grenade as soon as the end of the year, which would create the need for new hires, Chambers told Orlando Inno.
Chris Chambers
Here’s more from Chambers on why his company won the Army contract and what it means for the firm’s future growth.
Why is the Army interested in simulated grenades? There was a practice grenade that was a pyrotechnic-type grenade, so it only could be thrown in a range or a safe area. It had a little fuse that made a blast sound, and it was a steel grenade. Nothing existed for training with soldiers around, so that if it hits somebody by accident, it wouldn’t cause any injuries. Other grenades tried in the past were hard, large and had to purposefully be thrown not near soldiers… It’s been considered one of the gaps in training environments for many years.
How does your firm’s sim grenade work? We’re purposefully vague about how it communicates. Upon simulated detonation, it interacts with a receiver and the receiver calculates if the trainees were killed, injured or not affected. If you dive behind something, it can detect if you’re killed, wounded or nothing.
The sim grenade operates like a real hand grenade, except it uses light and sound to recreate an explosion. It includes a pin, safety clip, hammer and fuse, just like a real grenade.
Around the same time Serious Simulations won its contract, the Army awarded three similar contracts to bigger companies, including Lockheed Martin Corp. Why do you think Serious Simulations stood out against bigger contractors? Larger companies are maybe more constrained. We were more flexible. We’re all veterans here. Eighty percent of the folks I work with are veterans. We have a common experience, and we know what’s lacking and what would be better.
Will Serious Simulations grow as a result of the contract? We have a certain amount of time to bring what we’ve developed to the Army, incorporate feedback and wait until the Army says it’s ready for production or they say “It’s a bad idea; we’re not going to do this.” We probably will know about production by the end of the year. If both [the simulated grenade contract and a separate virtual trainer contract] go into production, we’ll have permanent growth in the workforce. Hopefully by next year, we’ll be on a nice growth path and be able to move out of the University of Central Florida business incubator. If we had a perfect world where these are adopted in large numbers, we’d be hiring dozens of people.
Why did Serious Simulations decide to focus on training weapons and munitions? Our company didn’t start out as a munitions or simulated arms company. We started with virtual reality simulators for combat soldiers, security folks and even athletes. Early on, we thought to differentiate ourselves. Six years ago, everybody was using fake weapons in VR simulators. We brought real weapons in and created an electronic package we can attach to the weapons. We got involved with other live training weapons, such as grenade launchers. Our company has dominated in the last few years in weapons implementation.
Serious Simulations LLC
Founded: 2014
Address: 3259 Progress Dr. Suites 171-173, Orlando 32826
Employees: 20
Website: https://serioussimulations.com/
by Serious Simulations | Aug 9, 2021 | Serious News
Orlando, FL (20 June 2021) – Orlando-based Serious Simulations, as a teammate and key technology provider to General Dynamics Mission Systems, successfully demonstrated all requirements for the Indirect Fire prototype during assessments at Fort Benning, Georgia in the Fall of 2020. The project was part of the U.S. Army’s Synthetic Training Environment Live Training System (STE LTS) program for upgrading live training systems. The program was executed under the first STE LTS contract vehicle as an Other Transaction Authority (OTA).
The U.S. Army awarded the Short-Range Indirect Fires contract to General Dynamics in 2020 to provide a workable solution for the M320 Grenade Launcher in live force-on-force training. The M320 is an important dismounted infantry weapon that is not part of the current MILES laser-based training systems.
Serious Simulations developed its technology to integrate a M320 Grenade Launcher with a sensor package that detects and reports fire events, weapon loading, round type, orientation, and other data. Integrated with General Dynamics tracking system, soldier worn processor, and augmented reality headset, the system detects, reports, and flies out virtual indirect fire projectiles. The virtual projectiles impact the live training battlefield by communicating the appropriate battle damage to personnel and vehicles within the blast radius of the 40mm munition.
The M320 instrumentation package is a simple-to-attach barrel insert (left). A soldier fires the M320 with an augmented reality display. The detonation emits smoke and sound similar to the real 40mm fire event.
Serious Simulations’ unique approach allows the M320 Grenade Launcher to be readied by the soldiers in seconds, with no tools, thus enabling the soldiers to use their operational weapons in live training. The system adds no net weight, and gives audio, tactile, and visual feedback to the user when outfitted with Augmented Reality Headsets such as the IVAS system. Other players without AR headsets will only be able to see and hear the physical firing effects of the real weapon. The package accommodates different types of realistic 40mm ammunition with disposable/reusable simulated rounds.
Serious Simulations is a pioneer in the integration of patented instrumentation systems for direct fire weapons systems for the U.S. Army and foreign military forces. Most notably, the company’s “Weapon Skin” holds a host of tracking, sensing, and communications embedded in it, with the latest versions embedding a tiny edge computer.
General Dynamics was the prime contractor for the Short-Range Indirect Fire OTA 1, and developed the overall system architecture, integration with the Augmented Reality solution, integration of the Serious Simulations instrumentation package, and management of the effort. The mutual effort was a great success, and future work is planned together under OTA 2.
“We worked very closely with Serious Simulations in the Indirect Fire OTA, as well as in some prior internal undertakings. Their team really contributed to an entirely new approach to providing realistic live training with real weapons.,” said Jorge Rivera-Moner of General Dynamics Mission Systems. “We achieved all our goals and look forward to working together to develop innovative live training solutions to our customers.”
“We were extremely grateful to work with General Dynamics to help deliver a great prototype capability to the Army. Together we are offering mature effective solutions that fill current gaps in the way the Army trains, such as exercising the grenade launcher in live training. We have many more solutions to offer for other live training gaps too, such as the Mk 19 auto grenade launcher, the M240 Machine Gun, the M67 Hand Grenade, and Claymore Mines. They are a world-class company with terrific people, so working with them has been a great pleasure,” said Christopher Chambers, CEO of Serious Simulations and retired U.S. Army officer.
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For more information media should contact –
Christopher Chambers, Serious Simulations, 407-538-1927, cchambers@serioussimulations.com
About Serious Simulations, LLC: Serious Simulations LLC, an Orlando based Veteran Owned simulation business, designs immersive training systems using custom made hardware and software components for specific skill training needs, combined with motion tracking systems, wireless communications devices, wireless display technologies and commercial game engines. We have unique approaches to integrate real devices and weapons into simulators. We produce wireless video technology and wireless head/helmet mounted displays (HMDs) with very high resolutions and wide fields of view. Serious Simulations’ professional grade VR training systems focus on military, police, emergency responders, and professional grade sports and entertainment experiences. For more information, visit our web site at www.serioussimulations.com . Inquiries: info@serioussimulations.com.
by Serious Simulations | Dec 29, 2020 | Serious News
(December 2020) Serious Simulations was notified that the Italian Army has officially accepted a custom version of Serious Simulations’ ready2train™ virtual reality Infantry training system as a certified training system for the Italian Army. Serious Simulations’ solution is the chosen technology for all of the hardware sets and is running custom game software written by Bohemia Interactive Simulations and Interconsulting DbA (Rome, Italy). The program is managed by Leonardo DbA (Rome, Italy).
Various quantities of two types of ready2train™ systems were delivered by Serious Simulations for the Italian Army:
– a completely untethered version with a custom made wireless helmet mounted HMD and wireless instrumented weapon
– a wired version of the system with a robust but unobtrusive overhead trolley system for carrying wired data without introducing tripping hazards to the trainee
The industry unique middleware for stimulating the animations of VBS4 avatars with realtime tracking data was written and provided by Serious Simulations in a plugin brand-named Serious ArtIKulations™.
Serious Simulations, in partnership with Interconsulting, is looking forward to increased sales of its unique hardware, and the provision of technology upgrades to the Italian Army for virtual reality Infantry training in 2021 and beyond.
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