Fiscal Year	2022
Division	Research & Sponsored Programs
Department	Naval Research Program
Investigator(s)	Sadagic, Amela Van Bossuyt, Douglas
Sponsor	NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary	Recent years have been marked by the emergence of affordable off-the-shelf solutions in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology. Those advances created a unique opportunity for exercising transformational approaches to personalized, just-in-time relevant training of large numbers of people. The research studies suggest that the systemic application of novel technical solutions in training will have a major positive impact on operational readiness regardless of community size or Department of Defense service demographic. These findings are especially relevant during times of financial constraints, or environmental limitations such as pandemics. We propose a series of research activities to identify best in class contemporary VR/AR training solutions used by the U.S. Navy and map those systems' capabilities to the U.S. Coast Guard¿s (USCG) needs. Although the research questions addressed in this effort are focused on current U.S. Navy (USN) training solutions and practices, there is sufficient evidence to support the transferability of training effectiveness across services, resulting in a tenfold return on taxpayer investment. Further, this VR/AR research compliments congressionally mandated interoperability requirements for USN and USCG, while simultaneously addressing USCG training gaps/shortfalls. The research will include a review of current literature dedicated to training effectiveness of VR and AR systems, discussions with stakeholders, and data collection that provide understanding about the USCG¿s training requirements. Our investigation will emphasize the benefits that each system offers, include advantages, disadvantages, potential obstacles to large-scale adoption, and highlight the best use cases.
Keywords	Augmented Reality Human Performance Virtual Reality large scale adoption of technology training training effectiveness
Publications	Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data	Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal