Augmented Reality Cues for Navigational Success (ARCNAV)
Abstract
Effective wayfinding requires understanding which cues in the environment can guide navigation, especially when a new route may need to be adopted. Often these cues are large landmarks (e.g., buildings or mountains) that can be seen from multiple perspectives in a large-scale environment. The landmarks aid wayfinding by cueing direction of movement or making ones location relative to the landmark clear. The proposed research will determine whether augmented reality (AR) can be leveraged to provide more cues for guiding navigation and wayfinding than the real world may offer. AR can also be used to guide attention to real-world cues that may be particularly helpful for navigation. We will either place (with AR) or highlight different types of cues in an outdoor environment to assess their roles in guiding wayfinding. We will also determine whether certain AR cues aid in decision making when planned navigational routes suddenly change (e.g., due to a planned route being blocked or dangerous). In testing the AR cues in the context of real, outdoor navigation, we expect our findings to provide explicit guidelines for effective strategies that could exist among different navigators. These guidelines and findings would directly align with the warfighter performance priority at the Office of Naval Research to expand and extend small unit leader training and education. AR can enhance decision making skills and wayfinding expertise, but effective use of AR for navigation requires systematic study to ensure that there are not detrimental effects associated with perceptual and cognitive processing of the AR cues. We aim to provide initial findings that inform future capabilities of man-machine and augmented interfaces as technological advances permit deployment of these capabilities to the field. Approved for public release:distribution unlimited.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 05, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112583
Entities
People
- Robert Bodenheimer
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- Vanderbilt University