In news- The Army Training Command recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Gandhinagar-based Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU) to develop a ‘Wargame Research and Development Centre’ in New Delhi.
About Project WARDEC-
- The project, which has been given a prototype name ‘WARDEC’, will be a first-of-its-kind simulation-based training centre in India that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to design virtual reality wargames.
- The Wargame Research and Development Centre will be used by the Army to train its soldiers and test their strategies through “metaverse-enabled gameplay”.
- The wargame models will be designed to prepare for wars as well as counter-terror and counter-insurgency operations.
- The centre will come up in a military zone in New Delhi and RRU will join hands with Tech Mahindra to develop the centre.
- The RRU, an institute under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), specialises in national security and policing.
- Located in Gandhinagar’s Lavad village, it is an “institute of national importance” – a status granted to it by an Act of Parliament.
- Soldiers will test their skills in the metaverse where their surroundings will be simulated using a combination of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
- In the metaverse, the players will get a realistic experience of the actual situation.
- The Army intends to use the wargame centre to train its officers in military strategies.
- Apart from the armed forces, the BSF, CRPF, CISF, ITBP and SSB can also use the metaverse-enabled simulation exercises for better training.
- The use of AI can provide a totally immersive training experience as it can simulate a battlefield close to reality and map several eventualities in the probable event of a war.
- Since the 9/11 attacks, use of information technology-enabled wargaming is preferred by several countries like the US, Israel, the UK to prepare for possibilities in case of terror attacks or war.
- In March 2014, several world leaders, including former German chancellor Angela Merkel, former US president Barack Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping had played a war simulation game during the Hague Summit about how to react in case of a nuclear attack.
- In that case, the target of the nuclear attack was a fictional country named Brinia.
Source: IE
