SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Bottom line up front: The next-generation operator requires an effective, immersive training platform supporting haptic force feedback and natural real-time representations of operational environments. Problem: Current operator training equipment lacks realism and accuracy for effective immersion of field scenarios. Training under these circumstances leaves many variables excluded from the operator’s experience, vastly limiting effectiveness and retention of battlefield tactics. Solution: Overmatch proposes an augmentation to the existing spatial computing and enterprise training platform (RevolutionTM) to incorporate haptic feedback to better support training realism and immersion for more effective education. This immersive experience will both improve retention of the training scenarios but also naturally incorporate more human-based element refinement, such as emotional management, as part of immersive attributes. To address the operational problems characterized above, Overmatch, and our research institution partners at the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Missouri Institute for Defense & Energy (KMKC-MIDE), propose to extend and adapt our existing Revolution platform and PDC to provide a system for Salient Human Electric Alerting (SHELL). The objective of SHELL is to provide a haptic feedback mechanism that can convey information to an Operator using a medium that is: (i) salient under the range of SOF operating conditions (i.e., able to effectively transmit the signal among other sources of environmental noise); (ii) robust in terms of information bandwidth to provide more than simply binary alerts; and (iii) that is additive in terms of the audiovisual sensory overload that already faces SOF Operators - i.e., a communications medium that leverages the currently untapped sensory channel of haptics. This added capability will then be integrated with the existing Revolution platform product offerings as a means to both bolster training outcomes (by providing richer and more immersive training feedback to users - e.g., feeling when they are leaning against an AR wall or the sensation of being shot by a virtual OPFOR) and provide an operational capability to bolster Operator situational awareness via a currently untapped sensory channel.
