Visual Simulation of Night Vision Goggles in A Chromakeyed Augmented Virtual Environment

Book excerpt: As data from the U.S. Army Safety Center supports, a large percentage of Army Aviation human error accidents occur during NVG flight. Despite this fact, there are very few simulation tools available to aviators at the unit level that aid them in learning or practicing NVG flight tasks. This thesis examines the potential for a Chromakeyed Augmented Virtual Environment (ChrAVE), consisting only of Commercial-Off-The- Shelf (COTS) hardware, to be used as an NVG flight training platform. It also examines whether or not physically-based light calculations are necessary to produce adequate visual representation of simulated NVG imagery. Twelve subjects performed simulated low-level NVG flight navigation tasks in the ChrAVE. Treatments included questionnaires, vision tests, variation of the physics-based component of the NVG imagery, and performance of an evaluation task that compares standard thresholds between day and NVG navigation. Analysis of data and subject feedback suggests that the ChrAVE has potential as an NVG flight training device, and that physically-based calculations may not be necessary to achieve simulated NVG imagery that is adequate for training. The data also supports the existence of a substantial difference in the subjective evaluation standard between navigation performances based on flight condition.