Photo By Seaman Alexia Mezick | U.S. Navy Quartermaster 3rd Class Zinnia Bank participates in a virtual navigation demonstration using Virtual Bridge and Nautical Trainer (VIBRaNT) held in the pilot house of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), Jan. 8, 2026. Theodore Roosevelt, the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 9, is currently pierside at Naval Air Station North Island in its homeport of San Diego. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Alexia Mezick) see less
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Theodore Roosevelt Hosts Bridge Team VR Training Demonstration
U.S. Navy Sailors aboard Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) participated in a virtual navigation training demonstration using Virtual Bridge and Nautical Trainer (VIBRaNT), Jan. 8, 2026.
The event, hosted by Office of Naval Research (ONR) Global TechSolutions and Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific, offered Sailors a first-hand experience of how the self-contained system can be used onboard Navy platforms to improve the navigation and seamanship skills of bridge watch teams by allowing them to practice rules of the road, rehearse missions, and maintain proficiency when unable to visit a shore-based training center.
VIBRaNT is a portable training system that uses commercial off the shelf extended reality hardware with commercial industry-developed software to utilize laptops, wireless routers, and headsets in order to create a realistic virtual bridge environment.
“We can bring this onboard as a mechanism to have better access for training, increasing the availability to train, and providing better situational awareness,” said Amelia Kracinovich, Human Systems Integration scientist at NIWC Pacific.
VIBRaNT immerses naval warfighters in virtual scenarios and at-sea operational environments. It offers an ideal way for bridge crews to maintain their proficiency in a virtual setting when the ship is not at sea or when they need to practice unfamiliar ship-driving scenarios.
"I can see this system being very useful to have onboard,” said Senior Chief Quartermaster Tom Salvatore. “Currently we rely on off-ship simulators in order to train our watch teams in foreign ports and waterways. This system will greatly increase our capacity for training to real-life scenarios that cannot be easily simulated otherwise."
The system can be used to evaluate Sailor performance in particularly stressful conditions.
“This training will benefit our crew because it allows us to be in a scenario we may have never been in before. So, you are able to be hands-on and react instead of just listening and talking about potential steps and solutions,” said Quartermaster 3rd Class Zinnia Banks.
The development of VIBRaNT was spurred by ONR’s TechSolutions program. TechSolutions is focused on producing prototype solutions to problems across the fleet or force submitted by Sailors and Marines. TechSolutions then links warfighters to the government science and technology community to help develop the needed technologies as quickly as possible.
Theodore Roosevelt, the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 9, is currently pierside at Naval Air Station North Island in its homeport of San Diego.
For more news from Theodore Roosevelt, please visit https://www.airpac.navy.mil/Organization/USS-Theodore-Roosevelt-CVN-71/ and https://www.dvidshub.net/unit/USSTR-CVN71. Join the conversation online at www.facebook.com/USSTheodoreRoosevelt and at www.x.com/The RealCVN71
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