October 07, 2024
Like the use of UAVs this will have to be developed over time. We are already seeing the US Army moving to blending VR with reality with goggles - they are projecting onto the goggles computer generated information much as a Heads Up Display is used for fighters and other aircraft. As information is made available from other sensors that too can be projected to the soldier.
In aircraft the ability to project a computer generated vision is already being used - synthetic vision projects the location of a runway and obstacles for the aircrew - even terrain - at night and in the weather this enables the pilot to “see” the obstacles and the runway.
For training the sky is the limit. It is much cheaper to use VR in simulators than to do a live fire exercise. For fighters the training in the simulators in many ways exceeds that available in real life - you get more realistic kill removal, can reset and refly much quicker and thus get more engagements in per training hour and the simulator is usually cheaper to use than the aircraft. Whereas a fighter is hard pressed to do 3 missions in one day, usually only does 2 - a simulator can be run non-stop with very little maintenance required.
The improvement in the projection systems is helping in this. The new Boeing replacement for the T-38 is going to have 8k screens giving it 20/25 vision - just slightly worse than reality. Within a few years I am sure we will have much cheaper and higher resolution screens than that available.
I think their will be far more uses of VR - ways to integrate it into Command and Control to eliminate the need for multiple 2D screens where the personnel have to integrate the information from the screens into useful information. We have seen this with the F-22 and even more with the F-35. The VR will allow much greater sensor fusion and make the average soldier far more effective.
