Jan. 19 marked a milestone for United States Army education as West Point became the first Department of Defense entity to onboard a first-of-its-kind, immersive Analytics Engine onto the U.S. Military Academy’s three Aviation Training Next (ATN) Systems.
As part of the multimillion-dollar Academic Building Upgrade Program (ABUP), West Point’s Department of Systems Engineering welcomed the ATN System in 2021 to offer cadets a more hands-on, immersive learning approach. This system would become one technology of many enabled by new laboratories in the Cyber and Engineering Academic Center and other academic building modernization efforts.
“The Aviation Training Next System is a virtual reality tool that can replicate a number of rotary-wing aircraft; however, the one thing that the system lacked was the ability to extract formatted data,” said Col. James Schreiner, the director of the Engineering Management (EM) Program for the Department of Systems Engineering at West Point. “To provide feedback and analysis potential in classroom applications, or applied research, cadets had to manually track performance data. This proved inefficient and laborious for both instructors and cadets, so we began looking for an automated solution.”
A state-of-the-art Analytics Engine proved to be that solution for its ability to capture actions and biophysical data in real-time and deliver analytic results to multi-screen dashboards and performance archives.
"Bringing the lesson plan to life is key for learning absorption,” Schreiner said. “The Analytics Engine becomes a conduit for instructors to extract performance data and teach cadets with real data they had a hand in creating. This learning experience also inspires cadets to begin visualizing how the Army could employ other similar technologies to teach or train leaders and Soldiers in the future as new system designs are realized.”
Premier features of the Analytics Engine include high-fidelity data collection that offers real-time individual performance feedback and a historical archive dashboard to identify performance trends.
Though the Analytics Engine provides a useful tracking tool for instructors, this software is also useful for cadet learning of how to analyze performance data.
Class of 2024 Cadet Brooke Barreda, an honors candidate studying Engineering Management, is conducting applied research on the integration of the ATNs and the Analytics Engine to the curriculum.
“New technologies create opportunity to learn which increases motivation and engagement in the classroom,” Barreda said. “I’m very excited to be the first to conduct applied research with this relevant technology for the educational betterment of the EM program and development of leaders at the academy for our Army.”
This Analytics Engine represents the next generation approach in leveraging human and machine performance to ready America’s warfighter for the future fight.
“The freedom to innovate which faculty and cadets have been provided at West Point has been groundbreaking,” Schreiner said. “Educating our cadets to think critically, creatively and innovatively on how you can use technology to solve problems or design solutions is a top priority and will prepare them as future leaders for our nation. Onboarding the Analytics Engine is a first step to inspire new, creative thought and prepare junior officers to be the problem solvers of tomorrow.”