Enhanced Situation Awareness in Sea, Air and Land Environments

Abstract

United States (US) military Special Forces teams currently use 2D visual displays for navigation information in the air, in water, and on the ground. These current displays demand the user 5 visual attention, which can compromise mission effectiveness, and using visual displays in low light visibility environments can cause fatigue, degrade performance, and compromise a clandestine situation. If navigation equipment that is dependent on visual displays were integrated with a tactile display, the need to use vision for navigation could be minimized. The operator could be more effective if his eyes were used to survey the surroundings rather than continuously monitor a visual display. The Tactile Situation Awareness System for Special Forces (TSAS-SF) was developed to investigate the potential of tactile displays for Special Forces operations. The TSAS-SF will upgrade present 2D visual navigation displays and will provide non-visual, non-audible navigation information to Special Forces personnel by interfacing navigation information with a tactile display. This new capability will provide 2D direction cues to the skin, which wilt free the user's visual senses for higher priority tasks (e.g. contact identification and classification). Preliminary testing in a High Altitude, High Opening (HAHO) parachute environment and a ground environment, and earlier testing in an underwater environment (McTrusty, Walters, 1997, Rupert, McTrusty, Peak, 1999), have demonstrated that navigation can be performed faster with tactile cues than visual cues, and superior navigational accuracy can be achieved with less mental fatigue on the operator. These results suggest that a tactile display that provides 'eyes free' and 'hands free' air and ground navigation information may provide the opportunity to devote more time to other instruments and tasks when operating in high workload conditions. These effects can increase mission effectiveness.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 2003
Accession Number
ADP013874

Entities

People

  • Angus H. Rupert
  • Braden J. Mcgrath
  • John Chiasson

Organizations

  • Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Navigation
  • Aircrafts
  • Altitude
  • Central Processing Units
  • Climate Change
  • Divers
  • Flight Paths
  • Global Positioning Systems
  • Guidance
  • High Altitude
  • Information Systems
  • Military Vehicles
  • Navigation
  • Situational Awareness
  • Special Forces
  • Underwater Navigation
  • Vehicles

Readers

  • Brain and Cognitive Science; Experimental Psychology; Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Technology.
  • Vision Science/Vision Psychology/Cognitive Neuroscience.