Tuesday 3 February 2015

Norwegian army tests virtual-reality headset in tanks

 Wearing a virtual-reality headset is a new experience for soldiers

The virtual-reality Oculus Rift headset has been put to a novel use by the Norwegian army - helping soldiers to drive tanks.
By mounting cameras on the outside of the tank, soldiers were able to create a 360-degree feed to the Oculus headset, worn by the driver.
The device - still just a prototype - is much cheaper than conventional military camera systems.
But the picture quality is not yet good enough for operational use.
The army began testing the headset in 2013 and in April of this year tried out the latest iteration of the hardware.
"It is a partial success," project leader Maj Ola Petter Odden told the BBC.
"The concept is sound, but the technology isn't quite there yet. The picture quality is good for 10-15m [30-50ft] - but after that it is difficult to distinguish details, for example whether an opponent is carrying a weapon."
The view from inside the tank
Now he plans to wait until next year for further tests.
"There will be better hardware and we can test it again then," he said.
I imagine that by now they are able to make this concept work fully functional, considering Microsoft have just released fully functional holographic glasses, see next post"

No comments:

Post a Comment