Usable x-ray vision has long been a goal in augmented reality research and development. X-ray vision, or the ability to view and understand information presented through an opaque barrier, would be imminently useful across a variety of domains. Unfortunately, however, the effect of x-ray vision on situation awareness, an operator's understanding of a task or environment, has not been significantly studied. This is an important question; if x-ray vision does not increase situation awareness, of what use is it? Thus, we have developed an x-ray vision system, in order to investigate situation awareness in the context of action space distances.
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A Robotic Augmented Reality Virtual Window for Law Enforcement Operations
In room-clearing tasks, SWAT team members suffer from a lack of initialenvironmental information: knowledge about what is in a room and what relevance or threat level it represents for mission parameters. Normally this gap in situation awareness is rectified only upon room entry, forcing SWAT team members to rely on quick responses and near-instinctual reactions. This can lead to dangerously escalating situations or important missed information which, in turn, can increase the likelihood of injury and even mortality. Thus, we present an x-ray vision system for the dynamic scanning and display of room content, using a robotic platform to mitigate operator risk. This system maps a room using a robot-equipped stereo depth camera and, using an augmented reality (AR) system, presents the resulting geographic information according to the perspective of each officer. This intervention has the potential to notably lower risk and increase officer situation awareness, all while team members are in the relative safety of cover. With these potential stakes, it is important to test the viability of this system natively and in an operational SWAT team context.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1937565
- PAR ID:
- 10196527
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality: Design and Interaction, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, HCI International 2020
- Volume:
- 12190
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 591-610
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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