Augmented reality can better inform troops.

• Author: Parsons, Dan
• Position: Inside Science + Technology

U.S. troops have access to a mind-bending wealth of information during combat, from video taken by drones overhead to GPS positioning and satellite communications.

But soldiers on the ground often feel overwhelmed with too much information, and the need to look at a smartphone or wearable computer can be a distraction during a life-or-death firefight.

"When you are looking down at a tablet or smartphone ... you are not aware of what is going on around you at that time and then [my] brain has to cognitively figure out what it is that I saw on my 2-D screen. Now I have to compare that to what's going on in the real world. Once you look up, you still have to make that comparison," Dave Roberts, senior scientist and leader of military operations and sensing systems at Applied Research Associates, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based engineering firm, tells National Defense.

The answer, according to engineers at ARA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is augmented reality--a system that overlays relevant information over a soldier's field of vision in real time.

"By having all the information heads-up and geo-registered ... I can be aware of what is going on and make quick decisions when there is a lot of uncertainty in the environment," Roberts says.

Much attention has been paid to Google Glass, which provides information through a tiny screen that rests at the upper right corner of the wearer's peripheral vision. It does not overlay information on the wearer's view of the world and requires a shift in gaze, although slight, to read.

Glass basically miniaturizes a smartphone and moves it closer to a wearer's eye. It is hands free, but a soldier still has to divert his attention from the enemy to access information, says Jenn Carter, a senior scientist with ARA.

ARA participated in a DARPA program to create "true augmented reality" that displays relevant tactical information within a soldier's field of vision, rather than on a screen.

"What we mean is information that is displayed that is correctly positioned, geo-referenced and in the user's immediate field of view," Carter says. "A lot of the other systems that we have seen claim to produce augmented reality, like Google Glass, are really more of an information display. The idea is that a soldier might be able to take cover and still be able to see exactly what is around him."

DARPA's urban leader tactical response, awareness and visualization program, or ULTRA-Vis, resulted in ARC4...