Wearable PC with an Artificial-Reality Helmet

Roland Piquepaille writes "In this short article, InformationWeek writes that 'two sexy technologies that flamed out five years ago -- wearable computers and artificial reality -- are combined in a new training-development system' for the military. This system, developed by Quantum3D, includes a binocular head-mounted OLED display and head-leg-weapon motion-tracking systems, integrated with a vest-worn tactical visual computer. It runs under Windows XP and is compatible with the 802.11 a/b/g wireless networking standards. It will be used by the infantry to train soldiers, but it looks so complex that I would need intensive training just for using it. Read more for other details and an illustration of the full scary system."

Comments

A crutch

[Staplerh]

This sounds like a crutch for good, realistic training. From the short article, which leaves a lot of questions in my head:

Quantum3D Inc., which bills itself as a visual-computing vendor, has announced the availability of the Expedition, a combination wearable computer and artificial-reality gear. The Expedition's target market is developers of so-called immersive training. Their products, in turn, are used to train armed services personnel and emergency-response workers.

Hmm.. it sounds bulky and cumbersome. Are soldiers really running around with a wearable VR gear - no, they aren't (at least not the line troops).

Now, I have limited military experience (some basic training and basic courses), but I happen to know that these troops are going to have a crapload of equipment and this will just add an extremely unrealistic element to their training exercise.

Besides, it will be unreliable and probably add a lot of time to various training exercises. I'm not saying it'll be unreliable just because of Windows XP (although it won't help matters.. BSOD in the middle of an exercise?), but because soldiers tend to crash around heavily with their equipment - and equipment, however sensitive, tends to be broken by technically inept people.

Looks cool, but I'm sure it will take a few million tax dollars to do an evaluation of this machine by Quantum3D and discover the flaws.

Re:A crutch

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a retired Marine with 20 years experience. The biggest problem I see will be getting them to wear it as My troops as well as myself would take stuff off strip the plates out of our flak jackets, any thing we could do to lighten our load as speed of movement was more important to us than what minute protection the gear provided. Not to mention the lack of being able to hear with a bell on your head and and now they want to further limit your vision. Can't see that as being good. A heads up display on a google for night vision would have been a good thing however especially with full perpheal vision instead of looking thru binoculars mounted on your head. My 2 cents

Insert Another Quarter

[Doc Ruby]

Aren't our soldiers already getting too much "virtual" training before we send them to places like Iraq, so huge percentages are coming back with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Battlefield VR and the Quantum Gate

[D4C5CE]

Looking at the description and the name of the manufacturer, it is interesting to recall that in the history of early CD-ROM videogames, "Quantum Gate" was a "season" of so-called "interactive movies" (VirtualCinema by HyperBole Studios) featuring the idea of VR overlay being (ab)used to turn the actual "soft" targets into something ugly the soldiers would no longer hesitate to shoot.

800x600 hmd

[edward.virtually@pob]

i thought the most interesting thing is that 800x600 oled hmd displays are coming (finally) vs. the currently on market 640x480. of course, how long it takes for the emagin unit to make it into consumer-available (and affordable) technology remains to be seen.

Re:one bullet or piece of frag and the system is

[Spy Handler]

Well, there's a philosophy with the military brass that they HAVE to go high-tech. Reasoning is, America has more money and more high tech than anyone, it's our only true advantage over our adversaries, so we have to keep pushing it and find a technological edge.

The former Soviet bloc had more troops than us, China has WAY more troops than us, both match us in tanks bombs and artillery, so we needed to develop better stuff than them. To a large degree this has paid off, although the amount of money spent has been tremendous. But things like GPS guided bombs, stealth aircraft and high tech command-and-control systems do give our troops an advantage.

Even though the military does do stupid things on occasion, give them some credit. If a system is truly unwieldy and flops miserably during testing, it won't get adopted for field use. The fact that they're constantly looking at new high tech stuff, trying to find something useful, means that they will have lot of flops too. But one thing you can say about U.S. military for sure - they're not stagnant.

difference

[goon]

What is the difference in approach with your kit and say Steve Manns? Admittantly your system is commercial consumer grade where constraints of market and production play a big part in releasing product. But Manns research and production into wearable computers (wearcomp: tapping into his right eye) has been around for ages.

Re:difference

[mpesce]

A single-eye system will produce eyestrain, but I don't know that it will necessarily produce binocular dysphoria. I doubt any studies have been done on this - and quite probably, they should be. Although VR is all fun and games, it's quite closely coupled to our biology, and that makes it very potent.

Actually...

[cr0sh]

800x600 resolution HMDs have been around for quite a while - for example, I own a CyberEye CE-200M HMD which uses 800x600 LCDs - very crisp output I might add (though the FOV isn't great). In fact, a ton of money will get you XGA and beyond HMDs. Most consumer and prosumer level HMDs have been *maximum* 640x480, often with very crappy FOVs.

I think the real nice thing is that this is a recent instance of an HMD using OLEDs instead of LCD or CRT devices. That is the real story on it...

Re:Why we don't use VR helmets today.

[NoneExpected]

Nice overview.

I built an HMD for the Army back about 16 years ago. Hmmm maybe more. Called the HELMID program. Helmet Mounted Infantry Display. The results were shall we say less than acceptable. It was weight, weight, weight and weight. And the helmet is a not so good mounting platform, moves too much. The idea was to rifle mount a TV and let the user shoot around corners and over fences without sticking their head out.

You see a display can not allow any light to escape, if it does then you have lit up the user and he/she is a well lit target for any one else using night vision gear. Very bad. A bullet in the face does not make for an effective soldier.

This appears to be see through, which means the combiner only reflects a percentage of the image. Which also means the image has to compete with the Sun as in Solar, very tough to do. This display is probably only viewable when the user is looking at a dark surface. The image will be washed out against the sky. You'll need to use stroke graphics for sky viewing.

A couple of years ago a company started selling one eyed head mounted HUDs for the general aviation market. I asked the salespeople at Oshkosh about all your points, and if they have been getting headaches like the Apache pilots do. Their reaction was interesting, and mixure of "oh my god, some one knows about this and what is he talking about?", I gave them my card and told them I was available for consulting, never heard from them.

As Bill M used to say, "That eyeball boy ain't changing". The issues are the same, the head can only carry soooo much weight, the sun is bright, and our eyeballs/brain interface is millions of years old and it don't handle mulitple images well.

Interesing work when you can get it.

This system is stereo so it should be easier on the eyes/brain. However it'll never see combat if it lights up the user's face.