A full-service systems integration company, LVC Contracting provides fire alarms, fire sprinklers, kitchen hoods, special hazard fire suppression and integrated building technology systems. It has regional offices in northern and southeast Minnesota, western Wisconsin and Phoenix, Arizona. LVC has a diverse client base and serves multiple construction sectors.
LVC-Operational Training (in a CAF fighter training context) provides the tools to integrate Live, Virtual and Constructive mission systems, when needed, in order to tailor robust and cost-efficient methods of Operational Training and/or Test. The LVC-OT architecture is based on a high-level, network-centric interoperability framework. The interoperability consists of the integration and exchange of information among live instrumentation, virtual simulation and constructive simulation as well as between joint military and specific service command systems.
In addition, it establishes a common set of standards and interfaces to facilitate communication between the systems. This includes the establishment of data management, exercise coordination and exercise collaboration capabilities. LVC-OT also enables the integration of real and virtual components in a single event.
The interoperability framework is currently at a stage of development where the major problems to be addressed are technical in nature. For example, there are issues with the ability of simulation systems to exchange data between them and the ability of systems to share information with each other that do not have an established data model. In this respect, the development of a common data model and standardised interfaces is an important challenge for LVC-OT.
Another significant issue is the complexity of integrating live and virtual missions with constructive systems. The development of a common simulation architecture will help to overcome this difficulty and ensure that all LVC-OT applications are interoperable with each other.
Despite these challenges, LVC-OT appears to have considerable potential as a tool for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of operational testing and training. For example, it could allow the simulated exploitation of enemy radars by US weapons systems to be conducted in a realistic laboratory environment. In this way, weapons system developers can avoid the expensive and time-consuming requirement of deploying actual combat aircraft to conduct real-world electronic warfare (EW) tests.
However, orthodox Marxists criticise the LVC movement because it is class-blind and romanticises the notion of a socially undifferentiated, homogenous peasant community, and because it supports restorative political struggles rather than those that aim to move into the future. They also argue that agroecology is not a solution to the food crisis and that it will not provide enough food for the world’s population, which needs to be fed on a global scale. Nonetheless, the movement has continued to grow. It is now comprised of some 250 local organisations in Latin America, and has a presence in the international arena through CLOC and LVC.