Special Report: Australia's xReality Group grows US defence training business with Interceptor

An instructor uses the OP-2 tablet to manage a training scenario. (xReality Group)

Australia-based xReality Group (XRG) has expanded its US defence training presence through subsidiary Operator XR, which has secured its first US Marine Corps (USMC) order for the OP-2 Interceptor counter-small unmanned aircraft system (C-sUAS) training platform.

XRG announced in October that the order was Operator XR's first sale of the platform to the USMC and expands the company's presence within the US Department of Defense (DoD).

According to XRG, the OP-2 Interceptor is designed to enable military personnel to train against evolving UAS threats using fully offline, configurable tactical simulations, without requiring live-fly training ranges.

In an interview with Janes, XRG CEO Wayne Jones described Interceptor as a system designed to address C-sUAS training requirements. He said the platform is intended to train operators rather than simulate a kinetic weapon system.

“The Interceptor addresses one of the most urgent gaps in defence training right now: the proliferation of small unmanned aerial systems and the seconds operators get to detect, identify, and respond,” Jones said. “From urban conflict through to peer and near-peer engagements, sUAS threats are now pervasive across the modern battlefield.”

He said the system replicates the engagement process used in C-sUAS missions, including detection, identification, tracking, prioritisation, defeat, and assessment of threats. The training environment is designed to reflect conditions in which drone threats may be encountered alongside indirect fires, reconnaissance assets, electronic warfare effects, and infantry manoeuvre.

According to Jones, the Interceptor can simulate threats including reconnaissance UASs, armed first-person-view systems, co-ordinated drone swarms, and other asymmetric threat profiles. The platform also supports both kinetic and non-kinetic response training, including electronic warfare integration and layered countermeasure decision making.