Philosophy

Complex Systems

There are manifold highly complex technical systems requiring well trained operators for safe and effective operation: fire fighting equipment, airplanes, various industrial or military systems or combine-harvesters - just to name some examples. The skills and knowledge needed for the operation of such systems can only partly be acquired on a theoretical basis. Practical training is thus always an essential part of operator instruction. Since practical training on original equipment is cost-intensive and often constitutes hazards for both equipment and operators, this is where simulators traditionally come in. A simulator can be a custom-made, highly specific and complex technical solution, incorporating among other things specific original hardware and a number of main- frame computers. For this reason, traditional simulator solutions tend to be expensive and not universally applicable. Complex and high-performance simulation systems can also be designed on the technical basis of standard PC hardware and software components, though, resulting in an economically very reasonable, scalable solution on which a large number of different simulation applications can be implemented. This is the Virtual Team Trainer approach.