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Eye Tracking: Driving Simulation for U.S. Army Training

Eye Tracking: Driving Simulation for U.S. Army Training According to a recent article at Armed With Science, a website that highlights the importance of science and technology to military operations, the U.S. Army has begun to employ driving simulators to study operator issues within the military, both in combat and non-combat applications. It’s an important endeavor on their part. The research has become a priority, as one third as many soldiers are killed in accidents as they are in combat. Cutting down on accidental injuries and casualties is just as important as organizing standard military and tactical operations.

“Our work is focused on how wheeled vehicles behave on gravel, loose stones, mud, snow and ice because these are surfaces where military vehicles frequently operate,” said Barry Coutermarsh, a research engineer at New Hampshire’s U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab in an interview last month on an Armed With Science podcast. Many of the heavily armored vehicles used in military operations have a higher center of gravity and are therefore more susceptible to rollovers.

In the relatively new simulations, professional racecar drivers have assisted Army personnel in driver training, and originally came up with the idea that soldiers could benefit from a more realistic simulation and a portable, military-optimized driving simulator. As a result, SAVE (Synthetic Automotive Virtual Environments) was created. Researchers are currently involved in capturing real data from specially instrumented vehicles that record relevant road information – all the bumps and turns. They hope to create a system that can effectively train new drivers of military vehicles, preparing them for operations and combat. Of course, this could have a trickle-down effect for the civilian population, and with government money and effort going into this important research, we could see some new, military-approved safety training applications as a result.

And apparently, younger recruits seem to have fun, doing quite well with the driver simulations, as they are used to video games and virtual realities. Eye tracking comes into play here too, as it’s being incorporated into some of the tests to monitor accident avoidance. The results have been positive, according the researchers, and more funding has been requested to continue the testing.

New Army Simulator Sharpens Driving Skills [Interview]

Eye Tracking: Driving Simulation for U.S. Army Training

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