TOLK CHAIRS MILITARY TRAINING AND SIMULATION ASIA CONFERENCE

Andreas Tolk, professor of engineering management and systems engineering, recently chaired the Military Training and Simulation Asia (MTSA) conference in Singapore.

The conference, held at the end of September, demonstrated a clear cultural acceptance in Asian countries of using digital technologies like modeling and simulation to train military personnel.

As defense budgets increase in several Asian countries, there are more options for investments in equipment and technologies in the military, providing an opportunity for modeling and simulation training to become more prominent. Conference topics provided practical advice on how simulation and training can help drive modernization by focusing on pre-deployment training, war gaming and data modeling.

Tolk, a worldwide expert in the field of modeling and simulation interoperability and composability, stressed to conference attendees that a key facet of technology integration and cost control is the movement toward net-centric integration of simulation command and control.

That means efforts must be made to ensure lessons learned in one discipline of modeling and simulation are applied across other disciplines, preventing technology researchers from continually having to reinvent the wheel.

"MTSA 2011 was generally perceived to be a success and can become a regular event focusing on the needs and opportunities of this region," Tolk said.

Subject experts from Turkey, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Cambodia and South Korea also spoke at the conference.