EXECUTIVE WATCH Marek PolČÁk


CEO, Cofounder of Vrgineers Inc. By Rick Weatherford


“Timing is everything,” says Marek Polcak, CEO and cofounder of the Czech Republic-based technology company that he hopes is timed to transform rotary- and fixed-wing aviation training. That company, Vrgineers Inc., has a unique spelling that reflects its unique combination of technology it is introducing to aviation. The first two letters are pronounced as individual letters: V-R-gineers. That captures what Polcak and his team do: they are virtual-reality (VR) engineers creating realistic training scenarios in virtual- and mixed-reality systems that put civilian and military pilots into certain scenarios that allow the training of more tactics or missions than a normal simulator.


You may be thinking: So, what? A full-motion Level-D simulator can do that. Yes, probably so, but you cannot pack a big, dome-type simulator into a portable case or have 12 of them interconnected for a squadron training exercise. Vrgineers can. In collaboration with U.S. Navy and U.S. Airforce under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) they are developing and testing these


simulators to succeed projection based simulators. The Airforce and Navy aren’t Vrgineers only big customer. The company claims Airbus, NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), and Gulfstream on its customer list. Polcak says he’s been personally delivering training devices to multiple bases across the US.


XTAL is Vrgineers’ virtual-reality and mixed-reality headset worn by trainees in either full-virtual training or in scenarios where virtual reality is “mixed” with physical objects. In mixed reality, the trainee sees through the virtual computer-generated world in his headset to a reconfigurable physical simulator that contains common helicopter controls such as the collective, cyclic, and other fundamental components for use with virtual training. Reconfigurations currently reproduce the most common helicopter types such as the Robinson 22/44/66 and Bell 206. Vrgineers is also working on two new platforms for the Black Hawk UH-60 and the AH-64 Apache.


14


Mar/Apr 2022


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78