Battle Ball for Sailor Training

The Navy Newstand has a quick run-​​down of the VirtuSphere — a nine-​​foot plas­tic ball that sits on wheels enabling unlim­ited rota­tion in any direc­tion. It makes vir­tual real­ity feel a whole lot more real.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is devel­op­ing sys­tems like VirtuSphere as part of a pro­gram called Virtual Technologies and Environments (VIRTE). A user, wears a wire­less head-​​mounted dis­play (HMD) that dis­plays land­scape, and can update con­tin­u­ously as the ser­vice mem­ber moves, by detect­ing changes in ori­en­ta­tion. Much of the work with VIRTE focuses on the needs of the Marine Corps. 

The ONR selected VirtuSphere for the VIRTE pro­gram last fall. The VirtuSphere allows the trainee to walk, run, and crawl in any direc­tion, adding a fur­ther dimen­sion of real­ism to vir­tual train­ing. The ball can be dis­as­sem­bled, the entire kit fits in a car for trans­porta­tion, and it weighs less than 500 pounds. There are a num­ber of videos avail­able for those with some time to kill.
Besides the mil­i­tary train­ing appli­ca­tion, there are obvi­ously a ton of other pos­si­bil­i­ties for this prod­uct. The com­pany is based in Redmond, Washington, so I hope that they’re work­ing with the Softies to hook this bug­ger up to an XBox 360. Sort of an XBox 360³.
– Murdoc

April 3rd, 2006 | Training and Sims | 3119156 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2006/04/03/battle-ball-for-sailor-training/Battle+Ball+for+Sailor+Training2006-04-03+22%3A25%3A09haninah_levine You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.