ADF to develop communications warfare

31.10.2006
Charles Sturt University is working with the Australian Department of Defence to create gaming software for use by military personnel to train enlisted members on effective crisis management techniques and scenarios for battle and natural disasters.

When developed (funding has been announced by the Australian Research Council until 2009), the game will mimic real-life battle scenarios and involve animatic avatars modelled on human speech and movement.

Staff from Charles Sturt University (CSU) will work with members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) on the three-year project beginning next year.

Zoe Hibbert, part-time CSU communications lecturer and researcher on the project, explained the majority of the development work will go into ensuring gameplay is as emotional as a real-life deployment and mirror realistic information dissemination across the ADF in the event of a crisis.

"The game will be media communications driven and that is the focus, and the use of avatars is very important as players have to assume a role and relate to it emotionally rather than just playing a role," Hibbert said.

"Essentially the project has received the highest level research grant you can get and that recognizes the work we are doing is of national importance and highly competitive. The idea is we would like to create a serious computer game simulating crisis management from a communications perspective and while defense has first-person shooters we are trying to simulate exactly what happens from a communications perspective. It is a game but it will simulate crisis communication and look at management decisions on the way through.