Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) in Navy Training
(Room S330BCD)
28 Nov 17
4:00 PM
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5:30 PM
Speaker(s):
Heather Priest, Senior Research Psychologist and Multi-Integrated Systems and Teams Lab Lead, NAWCTSD; Hank Phillips, Operational Psychology Department Head, Naval Aerospace Medical Institute; David Wieselthier, Senior Visual Engineer, NAWCTSD; Courtney McNamara, Senior Computer Scientist, Principle Investigator and Advanced Gaming Interactive Learning Environment (AGILE) Team Lead, NAWCTSD; Chris Foster, Aviation Warfare Training Development (AWTD) Integrated Product Team Lead, PMA-205 Aviation Training Systems; Roger McPherson, Program Manager 07TR, NAVSEA
This year’s conference theme, “Harnessing New Technologies to Win in a Complex World” shines a spotlight on the potential represented by emerging AR/VR capabilities.
The burgeoning commercial market of VR and AR technologies and their applications is changing the discussion about how, when, and where we can affordably and effectively train warfighters. There is a consistent stream of new developments, improvements, tools, and practical use cases that indicate these technologies are likely here to stay, and will continue to evolve becoming part of peoples’ mainstream lives. The current cycle of technology rollout has not been without its problems, but the speed of its evolution, expanding quantity of market players, and significantly reduced cost buy-in relative to past false starts is markedly improved.
The technologies without question have the potential for lasting, profound impacts on naval training, enabling and enhancing training that might otherwise be unavailable or unaffordable—but only if the technology is implemented in the right places, and in the right ways, informed by science, with the ultimate goal of optimizing the human performance of Sailors and Marines. We must be mindful and not rush to use AR and VR everywhere simply because we think we can. Navy stakeholders and labs across the DoD are investigating the training requirements that can be met or enhanced using these capabilities, the challenges of their deployment, and even more importantly, what their current limitations are. Traditional technologies will continue to play a role as the naval training community adopts these new, rapidly evolving delivery methods, but what important lessons must we avoid relearning with the advent of these new tools?
The new, lower cost tools of VR and AR have tremendous potential to help improve how we train and support warfighters and teammates throughout the Fleet. There will be sprints, leaps, and inevitably some less than ideal outcomes with new lessons le