Augmented Command and Control Table to Support Network-Centric Operations

Alessandro Zocco; Lucio Tommaso De Paolis

doi:10.14429/dsj.65.6713

Alessandro Zocco Product Innovation and Advanced EW Solutions, Elettronica S.p.A., Rome
Lucio Tommaso De Paolis Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, Lecce

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14429/dsj.65.6713

Keywords: Augmented reality, head-mounted display, human-computer interaction, network-centric operations, military decision support system

Abstract

The success in network-centric warfare requires information superiority to obtain dominant battlespace awareness. The time required to take a decision has been reduced by orders of magnitude, while the volume of accessible data has been increased exponentially. When this volume is displayed to an operator, the risk of reaching a state of information overload is real and great care shall be taken to make sure that what is provided is actually information and not noise. In this paper we propose a novel interaction environment that leverages the augmented reality technology to provide a digitally enhanced view of a real command and control table. The operator equipped with an optical see-through head-mounted display controls the virtual context, a synthetic view of the common operational picture, remaining connected to the real world. Technical details of the system are described together with the evaluation method. The results showed effectiveness of the proposed system in terms of understanding perception, depth impression, and level of immersion. A relevant reduction of the reaction time and of the number of errors made during the execution of complex tasks, have been obtained.

Defence Science Journal, Vol. 65, No. 1, January 2015, pp.39-45, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.65.6713

Author Biographies

Alessandro Zocco, Product Innovation and Advanced EW Solutions, Elettronica S.p.A., Rome

Mr Alessandro Zocco is a PhD Scholar at the Department of Engineering for Innovation of the University of Salento and a SW Engineer at Elettronica S.p.A. His research covers virtual reality, augmented reality and human-computer interaction applied to electronic warfare.

Lucio Tommaso De Paolis, Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, Lecce

Prof. Lucio Tommaso De Paolis received the MSc (Electronic Engineering) from the University of Pisa in 1994. He is Assistant Professor of Information Processing Systems and has the scientific responsiblity of the AVR laboratory of the Department of Engineering for Innovation of the University of Salento. His research interest concerns the computer-aided surgery and the human-computer interaction.