Designing and developing a training system requires a structured approach that encompasses the product lifecycle, from initial analysis of how the system is to be used through system development, verification, fielding, maintenance, and disposal. Much time has been devoted to researching the constraints, benefits, cost, and maintenance of different types of haptics technologies used in medical training devices. In parallel with haptics, a considerably larger body of work has been done in the research and development of Extended Reality (XR) displays including tethered and untethered video and see-through head-mounted displays. To explore the use of haptics to enhance augmented reality medical training for the U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center, the team created an environment that optimizes the most critical requirements, even at the expense of less critical requirements.

The team evaluated the key requirement parameters and thresholds, as well as the research objective and trade space to develop a Care Under Fire (CUF) training capability that immerses a trainee in defending an enemy attack, moving an injured soldier into concealment, applying a hasty tourniquet and a nasopharyngeal airway (NPA) to the casualty. Post-training evaluations and after-action review (including combat metrics, time to treatment, efficacy of treatment, etc.) can be provided to the trainee, trainer, and third-party observers. These features are enhanced with both first-person and third-person XR displays that function as “windows” into the virtual and physical environment. Communication between commercial, off-the-shelf products and custom, embedded microprocessors allow for a rich range of capabilities within a robust and multimodal training environment. This paper describes the design, development, and trade-offs of an integrated, XR system that makes use of blended environments with virtual and physical interactions, as well as aural and haptic feedback. 

Keywords
AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY (AR/VR), BLENDED TRAINING, COMBAT CASUALTY CARE, HAPTIC , HEAD-MOUNTED DISPLAYS, IMMERSIVE, MEDICAL MODELING AND SIMULATION, MIXED REALITY, PHYSIOLOGY

Additional Keywords