Training the officer of the deck

The need to train people for increasingly complex tasks given diminishing budgets makes simulation-based training attractive in both the commercial and military sectors. Training systems that use virtual environment (VE) technology are potentially both reconfigurable and portable. The same equipment could provide a wide range of simulations at or near the trainees´ worksite, letting them train close to home. To explore the potential of VE technology for naval training, the US Navy is sponsoring the Virtual Environment Technology for Training (VETT) program at three Boston sites. The VETT program experiments with VE systems employing visual and audio feedback and haptic interaction (i.e. tactile and kinesthetic/force interactions). The experiments extend from basic research into human psychophysics to the development of human/machine interfaces and computational systems, and applied training. The goal of integrating basic and applied research in this way is to determine the advantages and limitations of VE technology for training. The initial project focuses on naval officers, specifically the officer of the deck on a submarine