01 Oct 24. Hadean, a UK-based technology company specialising in AI, spatial computing and real-time globally distributed data, has completed the development of a new AI-enhanced capability that can improve blended live-virtual training for the British Armed Forces. The first phase of the “Populating the World of Training” competition uses multimodal Large Language Models (LLMs) to bridge the real and synthetic worlds to provide more enhanced training for UK Armed Forces. The competition is funded from Army Innovation as part of Army Futures, in support of the Future Collective Training System (FCTS), under a project run by the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA), and delivered to Defence Science and Technology Lab (Dstl).
Hadean’s platform used AI to populate human terrain in a synthetic training environment to deliver more realistic and effective training outcomes – by using AI to integrate realistic, consistent, and representative simulation of A3E (Audiences, Actors, Adversaries and Enemies), whilst tracking and reporting all activity throughout the training exercise. To further enhance this platform for the demonstration, Hadean used an LLM to simulate civilian social media reactions influenced by soldiers’ actions during real-world training. Using multimodal AI to create a human-context-understanding layer over the training environment, aggression from training participants drove negative social media content, which in turn added complexity to real-world training for soldiers. AI was used to assess trainees’ performance by analysing interactions with civilians and radio communications, with Hadean’s platform generating detailed After Action Reports for each participant.
The demonstration, which was carried out at The British Army’s BattleLab in Dorset last month, is the first time that the bridging of the physical and virtual worlds through real-time interactions and multimodal generative AI had been undertaken for the British Army. Whether for a single day of training or extended exercises, the Hadean platform – and this innovation – has the ability to fully map the human terrain to greatly improve training, keep personnel safer, and improve decision-making.
The completion of DASA’s Populating the World of Training (Phase 1) is a clear demonstration of Hadean’s continued direct-to-government support of programmes that seek to modernise and digitise the UK Armed Forces. As a UK-based business, the delivery of this project also marks an increase in UK sovereign capabilities and freedom of action.
This latest project builds on Hadean’s recent delivery of the Collective Training Transformation Programme (CTTP) Pathfinder contract, where they developed and deployed a cloud-native simulation in an austere environment in Kenya to validate a spatial compute platform for the British Army, supporting LVC training delivery and after-action review in expeditionary conditions.
Craig Beddis, CEO, Hadean said: “With this project we have leveraged cutting-edge technologies, such as multimodal generative AI, and rapidly developed them into practical solutions for the end-user. This achievement marks a significant step forward for Hadean as we push the boundaries of defence training and provide a realism and effectiveness not currently available to our service personnel”.
Giles Moore, Principal Scientist, Futures and Innovation Group, Dstl said: “Hadean’s TRL6 demonstration of an LLM-powered training capability for the DASA competition, Populating the World of Training, was an excellent showcase of UK innovation applied to defence – Hadean delivered as good an outcome as I’ve seen”.