Title

A System For Evaluating Training Transfer Between Virtual And Live Urban Environments

Keywords

Training transfer; Urban operations; Virtual environments

Abstract

Urban Operations are of intense current interest. Virtual Environment systems have great potential to support urban operations training. However, as with any training system, a wide range of cost versus fidelity tradeoffs is possible. For example, in the domain of urban room clearing operations, the human systems interface selected can be a major cost driver. A training systems challenge is to determine the training benefits resulting from such design choices. The Office of Naval Research Virtual Technologies and Environment (VIRTE) program is conducting such an evaluation in an urban team training environment. In this paper we describe the systems used to conduct that evaluation. These are comprised of a pair of virtual environment systems and a corresponding instrumented live system. The virtual environment system employs two very different Human System Interfaces (HSIs). The low fidelity HSI is designed to represent contemporary, massmarket HSI technology such as found in a typical video-game. The high fidelity HSI is composed of the best performing interfaces and techniques identified in a series of preceding smaller-scale HSI experiments. It includes low latency optical tracking, high-resolution stereo head-mounted displays, 3-D spatial audio, and haptic feedback. The virtual environment shared by both these systems is based on a commercial game engine and military distributed simulation technology. The system accommodates a fire team of four trainees. The live system serves as a transfer environment to evaluate the training provided by the two virtual systems. It is composed of an instrumented shoothouse constructed by Clemson University within the nearby 263rd Army National Guard site. The shoothouse is heavily instrumented, and supports video tracking of trainees, laser-based hit detection, and head and weapon orientation tracking. The key features and developmental challenges associated with both the individual systems and employing them collectively in a training transfer study are described.

Publication Date

12-1-2006

Publication Title

Huntsville Simulation Conference, HSC 2006

Number of Pages

-

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

Socpus ID

84875696133 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84875696133

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