中國人民解放軍元宇宙軍事訓練正在興起
現代英語:
The metaverse is an artificial online virtual world that is born out of, parallel to, and independent of the real world. It is parallel to the real world, reacts to the real world, and integrates a variety of high technologies. These are the three major characteristics of the future metaverse. The operation of the metaverse conforms to the natural laws of human understanding and transformation of the world, providing a new way of thinking to understand and discover the operation behavior, state, and laws of complex real systems, as well as a new means to explore objective laws and transform nature and society. Researching the application of the metaverse in the field of foreign military training and analyzing the opportunities and challenges that the metaverse brings to the field of military training have important theoretical and practical value in solving the key problems that need to be solved in military training in the intelligent era, promoting scientific and technological training, and promoting the innovative development of military training models.
Background of cognitive metaverse empowering military training
The scientific and technological revolution has given rise to a new ecosystem for military training. Driven by the new scientific and technological revolution and the industrial revolution, cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things are accelerating their development. Technology giants are laying out the metaverse, and human real life is migrating to the virtual world more rapidly. The metaverse integrates a variety of emerging technologies, thus generating new Internet applications and new social forms that integrate the virtual and the real. Perception technology supports the integration of the virtual and the real in the metaverse, “AI+” technology supports the social nature of the metaverse, data transmission technology supports the real-time nature of the metaverse, electronic game technology supports the diversity of the metaverse, digital twin technology supports the sustainability of the metaverse, and blockchain technology supports the security of the metaverse. The future metaverse, where virtuality and reality are highly interconnected, is born out of, parallel to, and independent of the real world. It integrates all elements such as the Internet, virtual reality, immersive experience, blockchain, and digital twins to build a new basic ecology for intelligent military training.
The evolution of war dominates the transformation and upgrading of military training. With the advent of the intelligent era, the war form is accelerating its evolution towards informationization and intelligence. The informationized warfare system with “information acquisition and utilization as the core” will gradually transition to an intelligent warfare system with “intelligent simulation and expansion as the core”. The trend of long-range precision, intelligence, stealth, and unmanned weapons and equipment is more obvious, and intelligent warfare has surfaced. At the same time, combat elements represented by artificial intelligence such as “AI, cloud, network, group, and terminal” and their diversified combinations have formed a new battlefield ecology. The metaverse has built a new battlefield space where virtual and real are integrated and parallel and interactive. The traditional war winning mechanism is being profoundly changed. The development and change of intelligent warfare has compulsorily driven the transformation and reshaping of the military’s thinking and concepts, requiring the acceleration of the transformation and upgrading of military training, paying more attention to the impact of technological development and changes on war, and using the “new engine” of training and war to run out of the “acceleration” of preparation.
Foreign militaries explore breakthroughs in military training models. In order to seize the strategic commanding heights of military intelligence, the world’s military powers attach great importance to the innovation of military training models, and some countries have begun to try to apply the metaverse and related technologies in military training. For example, the United States has successively released the “National Security Strategy”, “National Defense Strategy” and “Department of Defense Transformation Plan”, focusing on building an “all-round army” and forming a “full spectrum advantage”. At the same time, it has formulated the “Training Transformation Strategic Plan” and “Training Transformation Implementation Plan”, and proposed the concept of comprehensive training environment (STE), the core of which is immersive and integrated virtual training, which intends to integrate real-time, virtual, constructive and game environments into a comprehensive training environment. Russia also attaches great importance to the development of virtual training systems. Almost all of its advanced weapons and equipment are equipped with corresponding virtual training systems, and are developing in the direction of universalization and embedding. The United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea, etc. are also actively developing various professional military training virtual environments. Intelligent training supported by technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and augmented reality is gradually becoming the mainstream of military training research in powerful countries.
Clarify the advantages of metaverse-enabled military training
Sprouting new concepts of military training. Only by leading opponents in thought can we gain the upper hand in action. The emergence of disruptive technologies will inevitably rewrite the current military training rules and systems, and will also innovate the existing military training thinking concepts. On the one hand, the metaverse has set off a hurricane-like “brainstorm”, and the training thinking led by “intelligence” will organically connect training with actual combat, and upgrade to intelligent military training thinking. On the other hand, new technologies and new means represented by the metaverse empower military training, strengthen the concept of winning by science and technology and intelligent driving, and greatly improve the scientific and technological content of military training, in order to control the initiative in future wars. The future metaverse will create more impossible possibilities by constructing a virtual battlefield space, designing wars and evolving wars.
Innovate new theories of military training. War is the area that needs innovation the most. Military training must adapt to the development of intelligent warfare, and theoretical innovation and training practice must be driven by two wheels. Training transformation will not happen automatically. It requires not only a sharp and profound foresight to grasp the general trend, but also a scientific and powerful solid theory to drive forward. On the one hand, by keeping up with the development of the times and starting from new concepts and new cognitions, we can build a scientific theoretical system for metaverse-enabled military training. On the other hand, by following the laws of combat-training coupling, we can establish an intelligent military training theory innovation model with the characteristics of the times, so that the metaverse can empower and improve the efficiency of promoting the iterative development of military training transformation.
Transform the new model of military training. The combat style determines the training mode. Intelligent warfare changes the “rules of the game”. Military training for the next war must adapt to the requirements of future wars by changing the training mode. The first is to be able to build an intelligent blue army with “both form and spirit”. With the help of optimized AI technology, powerful computing support, and realistic performance simulation, the Metaverse follows the evolutionary process of “knowing the enemy, imitating the enemy, surpassing the enemy, and defeating the enemy” to create an intelligent blue army with platform support and data empowerment, and carry out “real” confrontation training and effect evaluation in the Metaverse space. The second is to be able to carry out new domain and new quality combat training. The metaverse expands the practical application path with new domains and new types of combat forces as the leading elements, highlights the research and development of training methods and tactics that are compatible with advanced combat concepts and winning mechanisms, and creates new types of training such as unmanned and seamless human-machine collaboration, becoming a new point of combat power growth. Third, it can cultivate new military talents. At present, the educational metaverse has led the intelligent transformation of education. In the future, the military metaverse will accelerate the realization of intelligent interaction between people and equipment, deep integration between people and systems, and adaptive evolution between people and the environment, and promote the integrated development of “commanders” and “fighters” to “scientists” and “technicians”.
Reshape the new ecology of military training. The multi-dimensional perception, virtual-real integration, free creativity, and open development of the metaverse will make the future metaverse a fully immersive, time-transcending, self-creating and developing space. First, create a digital twin “battlefield metaverse”. The “battlefield metaverse” will be a typical manifestation of the metaverse in the military field, with stricter security and confidentiality standards, stronger simulation computing capabilities, and more real-time and detailed interaction requirements. Secondly, create a full-dimensional three-dimensional metaverse training environment. The metaverse uses technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality to create an immersive and complex scene environment; using powerful data and network support, it builds a full-dimensional space such as land, sea, air, space, electricity, and the Internet. Furthermore, build a metaverse verification platform for weapons and equipment. The platform will have functions such as new weapon equipment design demonstration, weapon equipment performance test, weapon equipment compatibility test, and weapon system combat effectiveness test. In the future, the metaverse will greatly shorten the timeline of weapons and equipment from “weak intelligence” to “strong intelligence” and then to “super intelligence”, and realize the intelligent multiplication effect of weapons and equipment.
Grasp the key points of metaverse empowered military training
Focus on top-level design. From the perspective of the development of things, the metaverse, as a new thing, has yet to be verified to mature. Intelligent military training is also a complex, arduous and long-term system engineering, which requires strengthening strategic planning and top-level layout. We should pay close attention to the development and technological trends of the metaverse, scientifically formulate the development plan of the “training metaverse”, and give full play to the outstanding advantages of the metaverse in allowing trainees to immerse themselves in experiential training under the realistic background of the integration of intelligence, informatization, and mechanization, so that the metaverse can not only be a display platform for virtual technology, but also a practical platform for improving the effectiveness of military training.
Strengthen technology research and development. From a technical perspective, the metaverse re-integrates the existing technologies in the information and intelligent technology group, puts forward an overall innovative concept, and provides a comprehensive application scenario, thereby giving birth to new vitality. To accelerate the development of the “training metaverse”, we must speed up the research on basic software and hardware technologies such as algorithm engines and network communications, strengthen the research and development capabilities of core technologies such as artificial intelligence, digital twins, blockchain, and the Internet of Things, and at the same time strengthen the overall technical design and development of the metaverse, such as immersion, sociality, openness, collaboration, and decentralization.
Create training types. From the perspective of time and space, the metaverse may construct an extremely large virtual war space, reproduce the war environment, present the war process, and virtualize the future of war. An intelligent military training operation system based on the metaverse should be constructed, the military training thinking concept should be updated in a timely manner, and innovations in military training models, management guarantees, and legal mechanisms should be deepened. Construct a dynamic and high-level combat-oriented military training environment based on the metaverse to fully support strategic, campaign and tactical training and war games. At the same time, in the process of “intelligent adaptation” of military training, realize the expansion of wisdom and intelligent evolution towards the unknown space of military training with “innovation, openness, multiple iterations, and new intelligent ecology”.
Pay attention to risk prevention and control. From the perspective of safety and controllability, the concept and technology of the metaverse bring innovative opportunities for intelligent military training, but what cannot be ignored is the potential risks associated with the technology itself. The Metaverse is a huge technology complex, and its system architecture, key technologies, and application environment are still in the development and implementation stage. The supporting protection system, safety technology, and management standards will bring security risks. In addition, the integrated application of multiple emerging technologies during the construction process, as well as the complexity and confidentiality of the application process, will be unknown factors that will be the key prevention and risk challenges of the Metaverse in military training.
繁體中文:
元宇宙是脫胎於、平行、獨立於現實世界的人造線上虛擬世界，與現實世界平行、反作用於現實世界、多種高技術綜合，是未來元宇宙的三大特徵。元宇宙運行符合人類認識世界、改造世界的自然規律，提供了理解和發現現實復雜系統運行行為、狀態和規律的全新思維方式和探知客觀規律、改造自然和社會的新手段。研究元宇宙在外軍軍事訓練領域的運用，剖析元宇宙在軍事訓練領域帶來的機遇與挑戰，對破解智能化時代軍事訓練亟待解決的關鍵問題，推動科技強訓，促進軍事訓練模式創新發展，具有重要理論和實踐價值。
認知元宇宙賦能軍事訓練的背景
科技革命催生軍事訓練嶄新生態。在新科技革命和產業革命推動下，人工智慧、大數據、雲端計算、物聯網等前沿科技加速發展，科技巨頭紛紛佈局元宇宙，人類現實生活更快速向虛擬世界遷移。元宇宙整合多種新興技術，從而產生出虛實相融的互聯網新應用與社會新形態。感知技術支撐元宇宙的虛實相融性，「AI+」技術支撐元宇宙的社會性，數據傳輸技術支撐元宇宙的實時性，電子遊戲技術支撐元宇宙的多樣性，數字孿生技術支撐元宇宙的永續性，區塊鏈技術支撐元宇宙的安全性。虛擬與現實高度互通的未來元宇宙，脫胎於、平行於、獨立於現實世界，將互聯網、虛擬現實、沉浸式體驗、區塊鍊及數字孿生等全要素融合，為智能化軍事訓練構建起全新基礎生態。
戰爭演進主導軍事訓練轉型升級。智能化時代到來，戰爭形態加速向資訊化智能化演變，以「資訊獲取利用為內核」的資訊化戰爭體系，將逐漸過渡至以「智慧模擬與拓展為內核」的智能化戰爭體系，武器裝備遠程精確化、智慧化、隱身化、無人化趨勢更明顯，智慧化作戰浮現。同時，以「AI、雲、網、群、端」等人工智慧為代表的作戰要素及其多樣化組合，構成了新的戰場生態，元宇宙構建出虛實融生、平行互動的戰場新空間，傳統的戰爭制勝機理正被深刻改變。智慧化戰爭形態發展變化，強制性驅動軍隊思維理念的變革重塑，要求加快實現軍事訓練轉型升級，更加重視科技發展變化對戰爭的影響，以練戰「新引擎」跑出備戰「加速」。
外軍探索開啟軍事訓練模式突破。為搶佔軍事智慧化戰略制高點，世界軍事強國高度重視軍事訓練模式創新，有的國家開始嘗試應用元宇宙及相關技術運用在軍事訓練方面。如美國先後發布《國家安全戰略》《國家防務戰略》和《國防部轉型計劃》，圍繞打造“全能型軍隊”、形成“全頻譜優勢”，同步製定了《訓練轉型戰略計劃》和《訓練轉型實施計劃》，並提出了綜合訓練環境（STE）理念，其內核是沉浸式、集成虛擬訓練，擬將實時、虛擬、建設性和遊戲環境整合到綜合培訓環境中。俄羅斯也高度重視虛擬訓練系統開發，其先進武器裝備幾乎都配有相應虛擬訓練系統，並且正朝著通用化和嵌入化方向發展。英國、德國、韓國等也都積極發展各種專業軍事訓練虛擬環境。以人工智慧、虛擬現實與增強現實等技術為支撐的智慧化訓練，正逐漸成為強國軍隊訓練研究的主流。
明晰元宇宙賦能軍事訓練的優勢
萌發軍事訓練新理念。在思想上領先對手，才能在行動上贏得先機。顛覆性技術的出現必將改寫現行的軍事訓練規則制度，也必將革新現有的軍事訓練思維理念。一方面，元宇宙掀動颶風式的“頭腦風暴”，以“智”引領的練兵思維將訓練與實戰有機銜接起來，升級成智能化軍事訓練思維。另一方面，以元宇宙為代表的新技術新手段賦能軍事訓練，強化科技制勝、智慧驅動理念，大幅提升軍事訓練科技含量，以期掌控未來戰爭主動權。未來元宇宙透過構設虛擬戰場空間，設計戰爭並演化戰爭，將創造出更多不可能的可能性。
創新軍事訓練新論。戰爭是最需要創新的領域。軍事訓練要順應智慧化戰爭發展，理論創新與訓練實踐必須雙輪驅動。訓練轉型不會自動發生，既需要敏銳而深邃的前瞻性眼光把握大勢，更需要科學而強大的堅實理論驅動前行。一方面，緊跟時代發展，從新觀念新認知出發，可以建構元宇宙賦能軍事訓練的科學理論體系。另一方面，遵循戰訓耦合規律，可以建立具有時代特色的智慧化軍事訓練理論創新模式，讓元宇宙為推進軍事訓練轉型迭代發展賦能提效。
變革軍事訓練新模式。作戰樣式決定著訓練模式，智慧化戰爭改變著“遊戲規則”，預演下一場戰爭的軍事訓練必須通過變革訓練模式，來適應未來戰爭要求。一是能夠建造「形神兼備」的智慧藍軍。元宇宙藉由優化的AI技術、強大的算力支撐、逼真的效能仿真，依照「知敵、像敵、超敵、勝敵」的演化進程，打造以平台支撐、數據賦能等綜合整合的智能藍軍，並在元宇宙空間進行「真實」的對抗訓練和效果評估。二是能夠開展新域新質作戰研練。元宇宙拓展新域新質作戰力量為主導要素的實戰化運用路徑，突顯與先進作戰概念、制勝機理相適應的訓法戰法的研練，開創無人化、人機無縫協同等新樣式訓練，成為新的戰鬥力增長點。第三是能夠培養新型軍事人才。當前，教育元宇宙已經引領了教育智慧化變革。未來軍事元宇宙將加速實現人與裝備智慧互動、人與體系深度融合、人與環境適應進化，推動「指揮者」「戰鬥員」向「科學家」與「技術家」融合發展。
重塑軍事訓練新生態。元宇宙的多維感知性、虛實融合性、自由創造性、開放發展性等特點，使未來元宇宙將成為完全沉浸式的、超越時空的、自我創造發展的空間。首先，打造數字孿生的「戰場元宇宙」。 「戰場元宇宙」將是元宇宙在軍事領域的典型表現形態，具有更嚴格的安全保密標準、更強大的仿真計算能力、更實時的精細交互要求。其次，創造全維立體的元宇宙訓練環境。元宇宙運用虛擬現實、增強現實以及混合現實等技術，創造沉浸複雜的場景環境；利用強大的數據、網絡支撐，搭建起陸、海、空、天、電、網等全維空間。再者，建造武器裝備的元宇宙驗證平台。該平台將具備新型武器裝備設計論證、武器裝備性能試驗、武器裝備相容性試驗、武器系統體係作戰效能檢驗等功能。未來元宇宙將大幅縮短武器裝備從「弱智」到「強智」再到「超智」的時間軸，以實現武器裝備的智慧倍增效應。
掌握元宇宙賦能軍事訓練的重點
著重頂層設計。從事物發展上看，元宇宙作為新生事物，發展成熟尚待驗證。智慧化軍事訓練又是一項複雜、艱巨且長期的系統工程，需要加強戰略籌劃與頂層佈局。應密切關注元宇宙發展動向與技術趨勢，科學制定「訓練元宇宙」的發展規劃，在智慧化、資訊化、機械化「三化」融合的現實背景下，充分發揮元宇宙能讓受訓者沉浸式體驗式訓練等突顯優勢，讓元宇宙不能只是虛擬技術的展示平台，而應成為提升軍事訓練效益的實踐平台。
加強技術研發。從技術意義上看，元宇宙把資訊化智能化技術群中已有的技術重新整合到了一起，提出了整體性創新性概念，給出了綜合性的應用場景，從而煥發出了新的生命力。加速「訓練元宇宙」的發展，要加速演算法引擎、網路通訊等基礎軟硬體技術研究，強化人工智慧、數字孿生、區塊鏈、物聯網等核心技術的研發能力，同時也要加強沉浸性、社交性、開放性、協作性、去中心化等元宇宙整體性技術設計與研發。
創設訓練種類。從時空視角來看，元宇宙可能構造出龐大無比的虛擬戰爭空間，重現戰爭環境，呈現戰爭進程，虛擬戰爭未來。應建構基於元宇宙的智慧化軍訓運行體系，及時更新軍事訓練思維理念，深化軍事訓練模式、管理保障、法規機制等創新。建構基於元宇宙的動態高階的實戰化軍事訓練環境，全面支持戰略、戰役和戰術訓練以及戰爭推演。同時，在軍事訓練「智適應」運作過程中，實現拓展生慧，向「創新開放、多元迭代、新智生態」的軍事訓練未知空間智能演進。
重視風險防控。從安全可控上看，元宇宙概念與技術為智慧化軍事訓練帶來創新機遇，但不容忽視的是技術本身伴生的潛在風險。元宇宙龐大的技術群，其體系架構、關鍵技術和應用環境等尚處於開發落地階段，配套防護體系、安全技術、管理標準等都會帶來安全風險，加上建設過程中多種新興技術的整合運用，運用過程中的複雜性與保密性，都將是軍事訓練元宇宙重點防範與風險挑戰的未知數。
來源：中國軍網-解放軍報 作者：侯春牧 王勇 責任編輯：於雅倩 發布：2024-01-16