New Weather Depiction Technology for Night Vision Goggle (NVG) Training

Current Night Vision Goggle (NVG) training methodologies focus on the use of a terrain board to introduce NVG concepts and experiences to trainees. The laboratory-based terrain board training is limited in its ability to present certain real-world scenes, such as weather effects viewed with night vision equipment. The direction of this research is to discover the means to augment terrain-board training with computer-depicted NVG-compatible weather effects. In Phase I, two approaches were studied: the "Shrouded Stimulator" and the "Weather Window". The selected “Weather Window” approach employs transmissive liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) to impose computer-generated atmospheric phenomena, such as rain or fog, between a NVG-equipped trainee and the traditional terrain-board scenery. The Phase II proposal emphasizes research into, and development of the “Weather Window” for further evaluation by the government, and research into appropriate weather-depiction technologies that are compatible with this approach, including research into a display-subsystem innovation. The effort includes laboratory integration of the developed technology, and use and performance analysis as it is used in conjunction with existing training curricula.