Prevalence of Astigmatism among Aviators and Its Limiting Effect upon Visual Performance with the AN/PVS-5 Night Vision Goggles,

Abstract

Emphasis on sustained operations during periods of darkness is steadily increasing. Presently, the AN/PVS-5 Night Vision Goggles (NVG) are utilized for night operations. The primary concern with these goggles is the astigmatism criterion since this, unlike spherical refractive errors, is not compensated by the NVG. The NVG have only an adjustable range of +2.00 to -6.00 diopters to correct for spherical error. No provisions were incorporated into the design of the NVG to allow correction of astigmatic error. Consequently, an aviator with a significant amount of astigmatism will have reduced visual acuity which will affect his operational performance. A study was undertaken to identify the number of rated aviators at the Army Aviation Center with detected astigmatism in order to assess the magnitude of this particular problem and to determine whether or not the current standards for astigmatism are sufficient for the aviators who are using the AN/PVS-5 Night Vision Goggles.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 02, 1982
Accession Number
ADA112836

Entities

People

  • Hanson J. Kim

Organizations

  • United States Army Aeromedical Research Lab

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Army Aviation
  • Astigmatism
  • Binoculars
  • Contact Lenses
  • Eye Diseases
  • Lenses
  • Light Sources
  • Night Vision
  • Standards
  • Transfer Functions
  • Visual Acuity

Readers

  • Aviation Science / Aeronautics.
  • Optical Physics and Photonics.
  • Vision Science/Vision Psychology/Cognitive Neuroscience.