$1.25M SBIR Phase II Air Force Contract awarded to HTX Labs

$1.25M SBIR Phase II Air Force Contract awarded to HTX Labs

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HTX Labs has been awarded a new $1.25M Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract with US Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) to enhance EMPACT to facilitate collaborative, multi-role immersive learning capabilities in support of maintenance training for the B-52 aircraft.

As part of this, HTX will bring EMPACT’s secure, cloud-based immersive content development, management, and distribution platform to AFGSC, delivering highly realistic immersive environments & interactive virtual training content. HTX will also enhance EMPACT to support multi-user capabilities – enabling synchronous, multi-role immersive training that allows multiple users to join the same immersive learning environment for real-time communication, training, and learning across geographically disparate locations.

AFGSC’s mission is to address the lack of physical aircraft & supporting equipment that is available for training purposes, improve crew chief effectiveness and preparedness, shorten the training pipeline overall, reduce training manpower requirements, serve as an enabler to Bomber Task Force/Multi-Capable Airmen (MCA) initiatives, and reduce required storage space to accommodate physical training devices by providing alternative virtual training capabilities.

The project’s results will drive training engagement & retention of Airmen who may consider leaving the USAF for private sector opportunities, encourage teamwork through technology that enables Airmen to train collaboratively, and allow instructors to synchronously reach more students across remote, geographically distributed locations. The ultimate outcome of this effort will be to increase the throughput of the training pipeline, lower overall training costs, and produce more fully mission-ready Airmen.

“HTX Labs is excited to expand our presence into Global Strike Command and take on the challenge to aid Global Strike with its mission to produce highly qualified, engaged, and prepared Airmen. Our main objective with this SBIR award is to build on the success of the immersive training programs we have helped drive within AETC, and bring those successful results along with lessons learned over to Global Strike. Our team is also extremely excited to expand EMPACT capabilities to support collaborative multi-user training, which is a feature that has broad applicability across the USAF as well as the private sector. We understand that maintenance training and operations is a “team sport”, and these new capabilities will allow Airmen to safely train and practice together within immersive, multi-role scenarios for the B-52 aircraft, such as towing, engine run, and safe for maintenance. When coupled with EMPACT’s no-code immersive content authoring tools, this capability will support just-in-time mission training, enabling delivery of the right training at the right time – across geographically disparate locations to the Airmen who need it. “, remarked Chris Verret, President & Co-Founder, HTX Labs.

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