Portable System for Auditory Situational Awareness Assessment and Training

Hearing is critical to the warfighter: threats must be heard, identified, and localized, ideally while wearing a hearing protection device (HPD). Modern HPDs include technology to preserve the user’s auditory situational awareness (ASA), removing one of the largest barriers to HPD adoption. However, HPDs distort the acoustic cues used by the brain to localize the source of a sound. Warfighters must train to localize sounds through their HPDs, improving their lethality and survivability while protecting their hearing. Creare is developing a training system, the “ASA Station,” that is easy to transport, simple to set up, and engaging to use. Our Phase I prototype of the ASA Station demonstrated two key innovations: (1) the use of a single parametric sound source paired with a lightweight acoustic reflector, and (2) a gamified user interface to maximize user engagement, which promises to improve training effectiveness and efficiency. These are key enablers to moving ASA training out of the laboratory and into where the warfighter lives and trains. In Phase II we will fully harden and mature the Phase I system, validate its performance via human subject research, extend the system to additional acoustic degrees of freedom, and integrate an immersive visual environment.