Home reports Cyber / IT CIHBw innovation project of the month: VR4Sit – extreme training in virtual reality

CIHBw innovation project of the month: VR4Sit – extreme training in virtual reality

Josefine Neuschäffer, employee at CIH Bw

October 23, 2023

A new combat simulation system virtually places soldiers in extreme operational scenarios and helps to improve stress techniques.

Soldiers on deployment experience extreme stress and danger situations. But how can you train in such situations without actually putting yourself in danger? And how can such training collect valid data that shows how well the emergency services can control their stress? The combat simulation system “VR4Sit”, which the former paratrooper Paul Kaden developed together with the “Bundeswehr Cyber Innovation Hub” (CIHBw), provides an answer to this question.

The core of the system is VR glasses that soldiers can use to experience various combat simulations. You go through a training course, see obstacles, enemy forces, houses or vehicles. Enemy fire can be simulated, or injured people on the ground. “Whatever needs to be trained – the system can represent it,” says Kaden.

His system also includes biofeedback sensors that record stress levels. With this data, the trainers can draw conclusions about the use and effectiveness of the soldiers' stress control techniques during stress training. A quantum leap – compared to previous methods.

The project name VR4Sit is derived from “Virtual Reality” (VR) and “Stress Inoculation Training” (SIT), a central part of training not only for special forces. “Stress inoculation training offers an opportunity to prepare highly stressed groups of people for periods of high stress in the best possible way,” says operational and troop psychologist Dr. Gorzka. It's about "imparting and training knowledge, techniques and methods for adaptively dealing with stress with particular attention to self-reflection," says the psychologist. Because “only by recognizing deficits can stress management be sustainably improved and adjusted.”

Paul Kaden kennt den Stress im Einsatz. Er ist ehemaliger Fallschirmjäger, hatte drei Einsätze in Afghanistan, danach hat er lange Jahre Soldaten und Spezialkräfte ausgebildet. Immer nach Lehrbuch, und immer mit diesem einen Satz in Hinterkopf: „Das würde man in der Realität nie so machen.“

“For example, if someone throws a smoke grenade in a combat simulation, for health reasons you have to stop the fight, take out your protective mask and put it on. Only then can you continue fighting,” says paratrooper Kaden. “Nobody does that in a real battle.” Finally, he came up with the idea for VR4Sit.

The 36-year-old started tinkering. Paul Kaden refined his idea together with the innovation managers of the Cyber Innovation Hub. The result is an overall system that is able to measure users' stress levels mobile, wirelessly and without any cameras within a freely selectable scenario. The system can also be quickly moved to different locations and ready for use in a very short time.

VR4Sit has not only met with great interest among special forces of the Bundeswehr, the system has also become a real success model for Paul Kaden and his startup “Ramrod XR”. In the meantime, he has “developed his product to the maximum,” says the 36-year-old founder. He has designed a modular system that can be used to simulate even more complex scenarios and train emergency services even better.

“Without the Cyber Innovation Hub, VR4Sit wouldn’t be where it is now,” says Kaden. He now had contacts with various innovation units, innovation hubs in other countries, ministries or authorities. “None of them has the speed of the Bundeswehr’s Cyber Innovation Hub,” says Kaden. “The hub simply has the right mindset for such projects.”

Josefine Neuschäffer, employee in the communications team of the Bundeswehr's Cyber Innovation Hub

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