Virtual and Augmented Reality Tech Still Not Ripe for Training
This post is also available in: 
עברית (Hebrew)
While virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies have been emerging as advanced military training and simulation platforms, US Navy researchers and program managers evaluate that there are still shortcomings that have to be addressed.
While virtual reality creates an entirely new world through the viewer’s goggles, augmented reality lays objects or information over a view of the real world. Mixed reality seeks to integrate virtual objects into real backgrounds.
Courtney McNamara, advanced gaming interactive environment lead at the Naval Air Warfare training systems division, said virtual reality has some plusses and minuses for the military. It provides a 360-degree view, and it is good at discerning sizes of objects and distances. However, it is not good for manipulating small controls, tasks that are not controlled by the user and views that require high levels of detail, she said. It requires a much higher frame-per-second rate so users don’t become nauseous, she added.
nationaldefensemagazine.org cites David Weiselthier, a senior visual engineer at the training systems division, who said simply boosting the resolution on VR goggles is not going to solve all the technical problems. The low-cost helmet mounted displays the commercial industry is producing have a lot of blurring. Looking only seven degrees off the center of the plastic lens — or up and down — results in dramatic loss of resolution. Fast moving objects are also prone to “smearing,” he said. “Currently, the low-cost HMDs are not addressing this at all,” he said.
Motion sickness is caused by the brain being confused as the eye thinks it is looking at an object off in the distance but is actually focusing on a panel much closer, he said. “Your brain does not like that at all. It causes fatigue and eye strain,” he said.
Cmdr. Chris Foster, lead for air warfare training development at Naval Aviation Training Systems PMA-205, said virtual, augmented and mixed reality systems have the potential to deliver lower-cost training with smaller footprints aboard ships at sea and could facilitate network training. “Can we build trainers that have a small enough footprint that we can deploy them? That is absolutely essential,” he said. Sailors need to hone their skills while their ships are underway. There are many underserved communities in the Navy that do not have access to high fidelity training systems.
Despite all these misgivings, the Navy needs to move ahead developing and improving these three related technologies, Foster said, stressing that warfighters have to get prototypes so they can try out these technologies.
