Interfaces for dismounted soldiers

Abstract

In military operations, most of the communication is handled by audio and visual devices. Less common is the use of tactile interfaces. Experiments in the dome simulator provide a controlled way to examine soldiers’ display devices within their context of use. Participants are immersed in a virtual hostile environment and utilize a display device conveying video feed from unmanned systems and alerts while having also to attend to their immediate environment. This type of situation allows examining higher workloads and task demands and it is in such conditions that it was hypothesized that the addition of tactile alerts will be beneficial. Results of an experiment conducted on 22 reserve soldier participants reveal that there are advantages to the use of the combined visual+tactile alert interface. However, they also raise concerns as to the ability of soldiers to attend to a display device and to their immediate environment at the same time and call for further research on the utilization of tactile alerts.