Human Factors Evaluation of the Aerial Gunner Scanner Simulator.

摘要

This report describes a human factors evaluation of the Aerial Gunner Scanner Simulator(AGSS) that was installed at Kirkland Air Force Base, New Mexico, and is being operated by the 58th Special Operations Wing(SOW). A brief review of the literature concerning the levels of immersion associated with virtual reality(VR) is provided to help establish the nature of the VR environment provided by the AGSS and to give some context for the issues that accompany using VR for training. The evaluation was conducted using structured interviews with questions regarding the fidelity and/or ease of use of components from each of the AGSS's main systems, (i.e., trainee stations, instructor/operator stations, visual, and weapons) and its training capability for selected aerial gunner/scanner (AG/S) skills. Eleven experiences rotary-wing instructors volunteered to participate. The resulting ratings and comments were quite favorable, indicating that most of the AGSS components were acceptable. Two notable exceptions were the spaceball and object detection. Both areas were judges as being significantly poor and received low ratings. We report comments and discuss recommendations associated with the components that were judged acceptable or significantly poor. We conclude with a summary of the main findings and recommendations for improvement with their associated cost estimates.