Projects
2021 Projects
Satellite Proximity Ops
USAFA, the Air Force Academy tasked students to build a satellite maneuvering simulation to help familiarize students with satellite behavior.
Using Unreal Engine 4 and a orbit/gravity plugin to simulate Kepler physics, the Wright-Scholars created a simple satellite simulation scenario where trainees practice docking maneuvers; scores are tracked in a leaderboard.
AR Maintenance Trainer
O'Neil and Associates, Inc., which creates technical manuals for Fortune 500 companies challenged the GRILL to extend upon the GRILL2020 AR Maintenance trainer by using a HoloLens 2 to overlay virtual objects over physical ones.
Using Vuforia and the Unity editor, students successfully tracked and animated the physical palette jack inside the virtual world.
UAV Digital Drone
Students in the Summer STEM 2021 program built a drone simulation prototype for the Wright-Brothers Institute.
Students used software in the loop methodologies to develop a search and rescue scan to find a lost hiker.
VR Straining
Summer STEM students at the Gaming Research Integration for Learning Laboratory® helped advance pilot training techniques by building a straining simulator.
The simulator uses EMG controls and provides instructors with a tool so student pilots learn the correct level of straining more efficiently.
SpaceX Dragon Capsule Astronaut Recovery Simulator
The Space Force's Guardian Angels works to keep astronauts alive in disaster situations caused by weather or unknown means when astronauts cannot land properly.
Wright-Scholars used UE4 to make a virtual reality search and rescue training mission.
2020 Projects
AR Maintenance Trainer
The AR Maintenance Trainer needed to assist users as they perform a maintenance routine on a physical object by providing various forms of guidance.
The project concluded with the construction of an AR Maintenance Trainer that the customer, O'Neil and Associates, was happy with.
Multi-UAV Simulator
Create an application and virtual environment for humans to control multiple UAVs at once.
Students created a fully functional level with 4 independent UAVs which recognized and differentiated enemies from friends.
VR Laser Dazzle
AFRL's Human Performance Wing tests human performance when airmen are under impaired conditions such as a laser visual disruption.
AFRL tasked the GRILL® with making a cheaper, safer alternative to test human performance when inhibited by a laser.
Action: Students and GRILL® staff took parameters from a C++ file and generated a plugin to model the effects of a real laser within the Unreal Engine.
Result: A fully-functional virtual reality experience was implemented.
VR Trauma Trainer
eFAST exams are poor ways of measuring a student's successful training.
Make a better test using virtual reality and the Unreal Engine.
Used an HTC Vive Pro, Blender, and UE4 to create a testing environment with working organ animations.
Multi-UAV Search and Rescue
The 2020 I/ITSEC IronDev challenged teams to make a collaborative, distributed virtual environment to showcase augmented and virtual reality technology.
To meet the challenge, the GRILL® team chose to create a distributed, collaborative UAV search and rescue simulation.
The simulation allows for the operation of multiple UAVs, the visualization of each drone feed in the operation, collaborative mission planning, and it provides situational awareness information through target recognition and live positional data.
The GRILL® team won the 2020 I/ITSEC Iron Dev People's Choice Award with their Multi-UAV Search and Rescue Trainer.
2019 Projects
Virtual Reality JTAC Trainer
JTACs are devices used to implement laser-guided missiles. Previously, large domes with many displays simulated the environment.
Build a cheaper, off-the-shelf, portable replaceable proof-of-concept.
A virtual reality experience walked JTAC staff through an exercise.
A successful proof-of-concept was built. JTAC must make and refine the scenarios before deploying to other bases.
UAV Simulator
Simulate different levels of drone automation to see how autonomous drones can become.
Create an experience for one user to fly four pre-programmed drones.
Created a prototype using unreal engine 4, Blender, and Quixel products.
A level was built letting a user control four drones in one unique map.
Multiplayer VR Maintenance
The military wants to decrease the cost of training experiences for low-risk routines.
Create a simulation such that multiple users can interact in a shared environment and perform a maintenance routine.
Developed a training simulation using the Oculus Rift S and UE4.
The project concluded with maintenance simulations for arbitrary objects. In the future, new objects and routines can be added to the simulation.
Multi-Domain Card Game
An Air Force Captain from AFIT uses a card game to help train soldiers on the different domains of war.
GRILL® students and staff were tasked to create a deck builder for the online game.
A deck builder with an intuitive GUI was created by students and staff so players could create new cards and decks with more strategies and functionality.
2018 Projects
Parachute Simulator
The Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) School wanted a VR program to train airmen for post-ejection and bail-out with parachutes.
Design a low-cost simulator for soldiers to perform parachute scenarios that prepare them for different environmental conditions and parachute malfunctions.
A VR parachute simulation was designed as well as a physical harness cage for a fully immersive training experience.
The prototype instance was deployed to the SERE school and is available for trainees. This project established a relationship between the SERE school and the GRILL®.