MAK Technologies, formerly doing business as VT MAK, Inc. is a software company based in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

that provides

commercial off-the-shelf Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...

(COTS) modeling and simulation software. The company develops and sells software for distributed simulations that system integrators, governments, and research institutions use to build and populate 3D

simulated environment Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educa ...

s. Users include medical, aerospace, defense, and transportation industries. In addition to offering COTS software, MAK provides the following services:

simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...

content creation, software customization,

interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader defi ...

, research and development, and training.

History

MAK Technologies was founded in 1990. In 2006 the company was acquired by Vision Technologies Systems, Inc. (

VT Systems VT or Vt may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Verlag Technik, a former German publishing house * VT F.C. (Vospers Thornycroft FC), a UK football club * VT Group, a British defence company * Air Tahiti (IATA airline designator VT), a Fren ...

). In 2009 MAK began doing business as (d.b.a.) VT MAK to reflect the branding of the parent company. In 2019 the parent company was renamed ST Engineering North America. In 2020 MAK dropped the d.b.a. VT MAK and returned to doing business as MAK Technologies, a company of ST Engineering North America. MAK has contributed significantly to SISO interoperability standards including the High-Level Architecture ( HLA) RPRFOM and the Web Live Virtual Constructive (WebLVC) simulation initiative. In 2013, MAK acquired DI-Guy. Formerly a business segment of

Boston Dynamics Boston Dynamics is an American engineering and robotics design company founded in 1992 as a Research spin-off, spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Boston Dynamics has been owned by th ...

, DI-Guy develops software tools for real-time human visualization, simulation and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

Technology

MAK Technologies develops COTS software for distributed simulation. MAK works with customers to build and populate 3D simulated environments where modeling and simulation is needed to train, plan, analyze, experiment, prototype, and demonstrate. MAK uses

open standards An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definition ...

as a base for its product line, which is natively compliant with both

High Level Architecture The High Level Architecture (HLA) is a standard for distributed simulation, used when building a simulation for a larger purpose by combining (federating) several simulations. The standard was developed in the 1990s under the leadership of the US ...

(HLA) and

Distributed Interactive Simulation Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) is an IEEE standard for conducting real-time platform-level wargaming across multiple host computers and is used worldwide, especially by military organizations but also by other agencies such as those invol ...

(DIS) IEEE standards. The company has also drafted and submitted the WebLVC protocol for review to the

Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization The Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) is an organization dedicated to the promotion of modeling and simulation interoperability and reuse for the benefit of diverse modeling and simulation communities, including developers, ...

(SISO), in an effort to bring live, virtual, and constructive simulation to

web browsers A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a User (computing), user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its Computer file, files from a web server and then displays the page on the user' ...

. MAK Technologies holds several United States

software patents A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, libraries, user interface, or algorithm. Background A patent is a set of exclusionary rights granted by a state to a patent holder for a limited period of time, u ...

including: A computer-implemented method for use in a distributed interactive simulation (DIS) type network protocol for simulating sustained contact of first and second computer-implemented objects on each other in a virtual environment, as well as two patents for high speed eye tracking device and method.

Customers

MAK Technologies’s software is used by governments, system integrators, and research institutions such as

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliza ...

Integrated Defense Systems, General Dynamics,

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military techn ...

, BAE Systems, Meggitt Training Systems, Rheinmetall Canada, Thales,

RUAG RUAG Holding (originally Rüstungs Unternehmen Aktiengesellschaft; Joint Stock Defence Company) is a Swiss company specialising in aerospace engineering and the defence industry. Its headquarters are located in Bern, while it also has numerous pr ...

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) is an academic pediatric acute care children's hospital located in the Pill Hill neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The hospital has 652 pediatric beds and is affiliated with the University of ...

, SAIC, the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

, the

Pakistan Air Force , "Be it deserts or seas; all lie under our wings" (traditional) , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = ...

, the

Naval Air Warfare Center Naval Air Warfare Centers are research organizations within Naval Air Systems Command. The centers are grouped within the following divisions: Aircraft division The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) conducts research, development, ...

, The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa,

George Mason University George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...

NASA Langley The Langley Research Center (LaRC or NASA Langley), located in Hampton, Virginia, United States of America, is the oldest of NASA's field centers. It directly borders Langley Air Force Base and the Back River on the Chesapeake Bay. LaRC has foc ...

, Czech Air Defense Technical Institute, the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

, DRDC Toronto,

Bell Helicopter Bell Textron Inc. is an American aerospace manufacturer headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. A subsidiary of Textron, Bell manufactures military rotorcraft at facilities in Fort Worth, and Amarillo, Texas, as well as commercial helicopters in M ...

, ITT, Embraer,

Selex Galileo Selex ES was a subsidiary of Finmeccanica S.p.A., active in the electronics and information technology business, based in Italy and the UK, and formed in January 2013, following Finmeccanica's decision to combine its existing SELEX Elsag and ...

, and EADS.

Products

MAK's product line includes interoperability tools to help link distributed simulations together; Simulation tools to model vehicles, people and interactions within virtual worlds; Visualization tools which visualize the simulations playing out in those virtual worlds. With the inclusion of DI-Guy in 2013, MAK now has a full line of Human Character Simulation tools. Product Categories * Link — Interoperability tools for interconnecting simulators and simulation components within a

(DIS) compliant with the

High-level architecture The High Level Architecture (HLA) is a standard for distributed simulation, used when building a simulation for a larger purpose by combining (federating) several simulations. The standard was developed in the 1990s under the leadership of the US ...

. * Simulate — First person virtual simulation and computer generated forces simulation. Scenario generation and simulation solution for generating and running urban, battlefield, and airspace scenarios. * Visualize — 3D immersive scenes, 2D map displays, and 3D informational displays showing the simulation activity. * Humans — AI Human characters for real-time visual simulations. Characters move realistically, respond to simple high-level commands, and travel throughout the environment as directed. * Terrain — a streaming terrain solution that supplies the physical environment to simulation and visualization tools. * Web / Mobile — WebLVC based interoperability tools that connect distributed simulation federations to web clients using

JSON JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other ser ...

messages.

Standards

Simulation industry standards and formats contributed to, and used by, MAK Technologies include: *

(HLA) *

(DIS) * Open Source Geospatial Foundation Web Mapping Service (OSGeo) *

Tile Map Service Tile Map Service or TMS, is a specification for tiled web maps, developed by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. The definition generally requires a URI structure which attempts to fulfill REST principles. The TMS protocol fills a gap between ...

(TMS) *

(SISO)

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official Website
Simulation software Companies based in Cambridge, Massachusetts