Development of Indirect View Sensor Systems: Effects of Viewpoint Offset on Human Performance

摘要

Advances in sensor imaging technologies permit the Soldier to extend mission performance beyond daytime operations and into the night. Visual helmet- mounted displays (HMDs) have increasingly been used to provide supplemental information to the Soldier. When night vision sensors are used to present imagery on an HMD, the relation between the sensor and display results in a viewpoint offset, where the perceived location of objects in the environment is shifted or displaced. Configurations that use sensor offsets, on which the display screen is not aligned with the sensor, create a disparity between input from the haptic modality and the visual modality. Perceptual motor task performance becomes difficult because of this mismatch between the two modalities. The objective of this research was to systematically investigate the effects of viewpoint offset on performance of operational tasks. Four sensor placements were tested for two tasks-walking through a mobility course and a close-in task. Time and error performance were evaluated to determine optimal sensor placement. These data were used to modify sensor placement on helmets to enhance Soldier performance.