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Office of Security Technology and Assistance News
Technology for Training at the National Training Center
The Office of Health, Safety and Security has been
a fervent supporter of advanced technologies as an effective
and efficient means to greatly enhance security throughout
the Department. The Office of Technology and the National
Training Center (NTC) have established a strong partnership
to make this vision a reality. The Office of Technology
is charged with identifying, procuring, and deploying
advanced security technologies throughout the complex
in order to address the Design Basis Threat policy,
increase protective force survivability, and to mitigate
the ever increasing cost of security. A critical component
of the technology deployment program is the availability
of high-quality training that ensures the protective
forces have the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities
to operate and employ these technologies in a safe and
effective manner. Each year the NTC and the Office of
Technology coordinate efforts to ensure that the NTC
is aware of technologies slated for deployment within
the complex. This formalized process enables the NTC
to plan for, develop, or certify appropriate training
for these technologies and make this training available
to other sites deploying similar systems.
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Once an evaluation of the suite of deployed technologies
is completed, a decision is made which technologies
are appropriate for integration into the NTC training
program and facilities. The new Integrated Safety and
Security Training and Evaluation Complex (ISSTEC) at
the NTC provides an ideal environment well suited for
security technology evaluation and training. Currently,
the NTC is installing the technology and infrastructure
within the ISSTEC to support training for several of
the most popular technologies including Remotely Operated
Weapons Systems, non-pyrotechnic breaching kits, friend
versus foe identification technologies, and state-of-the-art
command, control, communications and information (C3I)
systems. The C3I technology, "Night Owl", was developed
by the Special Technologies Laboratory and provides
an interactive capability for tactical commanders that
can display real time protective force positions, sensor
data, and capture events for follow-on review and analysis.
The Tier-3 Breaching Kit, developed by the Sandia National
Laboratories, contains a full suite of mechanical breaching
tools and has been delivered to operational facilities
and the NTC. The NTC provided a mobile training team
to train re-entry teams at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
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Besides providing training for security technologies
themselves, the Office of Technology and the NTC are
deploying technologies targeted specifically for enhancing
training capabilities at the NTC. The Augmented Reality
technology currently being installed in the ISSTEC is
a close-quarters combat training simulator with the
capability to immerse responders into actual environments
with virtual adversaries that move, communicate, and
shoot back. This high-tech shoot house provides a safe,
realistic, and challenging environment for individual
and squad sized team drills.
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In addition to the above, the Office of Technology's
participation as a member of the Department of Defense,
Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), resulted in
delivery of an Improvised Explosive Device Training
Kit to the NTC for evaluation and potential future use.
The kit is complete with electronic and hard copies
of lesson plans and training materials. In the near
future, TSWG will also provide the NTC with a Chemical
and Radiological Simulant Training Kit containing both
radiological and chemical warfare agent (G-agent, VX,
H-series mustard) simulants for decontamination training.
This Inter-Agency exchange of technology is cost-free
and allows the NTC to offer an increased selection of
training tools and opportunities.
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The Office of Technology and the NTC will continue to work together to successfully
complete technology deployment projects at the NTC. Providing the NTC with the most
advanced security tools and training materials supports their primary mission to serve
as the Department's Center for Security and Safety Training and provides a significant
contribution to our National Security.
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This page was last updated on March 04, 2009
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