DSEI 2025: VRAI launches VADE mission planning system
UK- and Ireland-based simulation data company VRAI has developed a mission visualisation, briefing, and rehearsal tool, the Virtual All-Domain Environment (VADE), and launched it formally at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2025 exhibition held in London from 9 to 12 September.
The system was first revealed at the Defence Simulation Education and Training 2025 (DSET 25) conference held in Bristol from 8 to 10 July. VADE is already in operational use with elements of UK Strategic Command.
The system has been under development since 2020. Niall Campion, VRAI's managing director for product and customers, told Janes that the system had its origins in work undertaken for the Royal Air Force (RAF) under Project Sphinx, which had both a command-and-control (C2) and a training focus, originally with the aim of creating a virtual platform to support tactical planning and intelligence training. It has now evolved into something far more powerful, he said.
Campion explained that VADE is built in the Epic Games Unreal Engine, using Cesium for Unreal as a data ingestion pathway. “This allows the user to go anywhere in the world, ingest highly accurate georectified datasets into the engine, and take advantage of commercial levels of visualisation graphics. You can visualise an operation and insert datasets that allow you to visualise complex environments using spatial computing and thus better understand the battlespace,” he said. The view can be manipulated to reflect the time of year, day, and weather conditions expected, as well as the use of night-vision goggles (NVGs).
Campion observed that imagery can come from a variety of sources. According to Cesium, data sources include Cesium World Terrain; Maxar Precision3D 3D Surface Model; imagery from Sentinel-2, Bing Maps Aerial, and the UK
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