A golf course in Virginia, USA was recently transformed into a battleground thanks to an augmented reality system developed for military training by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). As tanks rolled on to the golf course greens, accompanied by smoke and mortar fire, at Marine Corps Base Quantico; representatives form the US Army, Navy and Marine Corps looked on with interest at a system that could transform training approaches.
The system known as Augmented Immersive Team Trainer (AITT), can support a spectrum of live, virtual and constructive training scenarios.
Dr Peter Squire, a programme officer with ONR’s Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare and Combating Terrorism Department, said AITT was “only limited by the imaginations of those using itâ€.
This most recent outing of the system used recently completed glasses - or “optical see-through†components – for the first time with the AITT system.
Dr Squire explained: “The glasses are leading-edge and are really pushing the technology of optical see-throughs forward. But the glasses are just one component of the system. It’s the AITT system itself that’s revolutionary because it enables warfighters to turn any environment into a training ground.â€
According to the ONR the glasses are similar to Google Glass, albeit more technologically advanced with a larger field of view.
The AITT programme is now in its fifth year and developers hope to wrap it up this autumn with a final large-scale demonstration at Quantico. The program then will transition to the Marine Corps Program Manager for Training Systems for further testing and development.