When it comes to Augmented Reality (AR) the potential applications are equal to those of Virtual Reality (VR) – i.e, practically endless. And much like VR, AR is being seriously looked at by all manner of public and private industries to see just how that potential can be put into practice. One such industry is the Military, and we’ve already covered some stories at VRFocus about how VR is being used for recruitment in the UK and how late last year the Australian Department of Defence had teamed up with Oculus VR.
Over in America however the Marines are looking to use the technology for a more hands-on training purpose. Using a specially designed set of AR goggles, soldiers will soon be able to go out on realistic training exercises and war games without the actual dangers those sometimes come with but still with the realistic affects of their actions. The system, known as ‘Augmented Immersive Team Training’ (AITT) sees soldiers able to place overlays on the battlefield, attack virtual enemies, tanks and planes and call in support from nearby artillery with the shots made and resulting explosions all shown to you through the goggles. They even recognise the use of binoculars zooming your vision in on any particular target. There is certainly a lot of potential involved as it is notable that AITT switched from its original home at Naval Research to now be under the control of the Marines.
This military training of the future is still in the prototype phase, however future funding might well see further developments by the end of 2016. You can find out more about AITT and see it in action in the video below.
VRFocus will be sure to keep you up to date on future developments with the AITT system as well as other commercial and non-commercial uses of AR.
