ASTi added a new feature to its simulated air traffic control (ATC) environment (SATCE) to support training multiple pilots simultaneously. Due to customer requests, its Simulated Environment for Realistic ATC (SERA) product now supports "multi-ownship" training.
Before SERA, pilot trainees could only interact with ATC (e.g., ground, tower, approach) through the roles the instructor played during the training scenario. Then ASTi developed SERA, which filled the simulation with AI-enabled controllers, other aircraft and pilots with radios to fully flesh out the training environment. Students could see other aircraft, hear their radio calls and interact with AI controllers for the first time. But each human pilot trained in their own dedicated and unique "world" and in their own aircraft (i.e., the ownship).
Previously, to achieve realistic traffic density in the simulated environment, training centers coordinated "pattern parties" by connecting multiple simulators with other student pilots. Aside from being logistically challenging, this method also introduced the possibility that another student's improper phraseology could negatively affect their peers' training.
Now, however, SERA allows multiple human pilots to participate in the same bustling ATC environment together. They can see and communicate with each other as well as SERA's ATC controllers. Trainees can join or leave at any time and interact with ATC simultaneously or independently, depending on where they are in the training mission. Trainee actions and reactions have repercussions on their human counterparts as SERA's full ATC environment nimbly adjusts accordingly. This new capability boosts the training environment's realism and allows instructors to introduce it to students at any time along their training journey.
This multi-ownship capability is just the next evolution in SERA's accurate reconstruction of real-world pilot training, where everyone shares the same airspace. It simplifies distributed, multi-platform training and can reduce the hardware footprint for training centers and other simulation facilities.
