Retired Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) veteran and Babcock Canada’s Senior Business Development Manager – Land, Rob Marois, says he never thought he’d get back into a combat situation in Afghanistan. But that was before trying the Babcock Immersive Training Experience (BITE), a technology-driven training platform offering a new way of learning for military and emergency personnel.
“It gave me goosebumps,” says the former Royal Dragoons Commanding Officer and Chief of Operations with Task Force Kandahar during NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) engagement in the country.
“And I say this as someone who was skeptical going in,” adds Marois. “It brought me right back to an abandoned building we had used as a command post” in Afghanistan’s southern Panjwayi district.
“It had the guns going off, the helicopters coming in, all the different smells and aromas that go with that, the shaking of the building, the lights dimming. It was all the same.”
Launched in the U.K. in 2024, BITE has been used to support innovation and trial events for multiple end users and is now set to launch in Canada at CANSEC 2025 in Ottawa. Following its event debut, BITE will be available for demonstration at Invest Ottawa’s research and development complex Area X.0.
Complete the contact form in the training section of Babcock Canada’s website if you would like to experience BITE for yourself.
Seismic simulation, generated aromas, and visual stimuli
Ensuring real-time training exercises are as similar as possible to front-line combat or other emergencies are the whole point of BITE, which provides a suite of realistic land, sea, and air simulations; dynamic controls; full data capture; and adaptable design.
The module can replicate virtually any scenario in a “safe-to-try” environment — from a command post in a ground war situation, to a ship at sea, to a helicopter medevac or civilian emergency.
“It’s only limited by the imagination of the training audience and what they want to do,” says
Marois, adding that BITE can be tailored completely to a client’s requirements. “This hyper-realistic system is adaptable to both current and future theatre-specific mission training requirements. It can be deployed anywhere in Canada or even overseas, supporting missions like Operation REASSURANCE with the Canadian-led NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia.”
Realism is achieved through tailored soundscapes, seismic simulation, climate control, generated aromas, and visual stimuli piped into the training module by unseen training supervisors. As the exercise takes place, the team in the control room is able to measure trainee performance in real-time through observation and the recording of biometric data, enabling them to critically assess and problem solve before repeating the exercise.
It’s all part of a realistic training offering designed to prepare users for the physical and cognitive stresses of real-life operations.
“It’s extreme pressure,” explains Marois. “The cognitive load is through the roof.”
BITE: The benefits for military and first responders
Marois says BITE’s main benefit for trainees and their organizations is the realistic “bridge” it provides between traditional classroom-based learning and actual deployment. But there are other benefits:
- Typical field training exercises are time-consuming and often rushed — BITE doesn’t have these same time pressures, because it doesn’t require an actual command post to be set up or a ship put to sea, allowing trainees to get in more “sets and reps.”
- Building greater confidence in trainees’ decision-making capability, thanks to this continuous high-level training.
- Cost savings by not having to deploy expensive military equipment for training (along with less wear-and-tear on military gear).
“In the army, we often say ‘train as you fight’ or ‘train as you operate.’ That’s because your hardest day should be in training, not in real operations,” Marois explains. “BITE provides that level of training by bridging the gap between traditional classroom learning and live operations.”
Customers can buy a BITE module outright, lease it, or use it as a pay-as-you-go service.
“BITE is also a hit with the general public,” Marois says, recalling a demonstration Babcock recently delivered at an event in Florida.
“One military member, who hadn’t experienced a live active operation, felt so immersed in her BITE demonstration, she immediately wanted a second one.”
