Bio-reckoning: Perceptual user interface design for military training

Abstract

Simulation based training is one way to attain operational realism for training complex military tasks in a safe, task relevant manner. For successful transfer of knowledge, skills, and abilities to the dynamically changing military environment, the human-computer interface should minimally support learning during the training process and provide congruent action plans that facilitate understanding of the overall training goal. While there are emerging controller technologies, simulators still rely on such input devices as mouse and keyboard. These devices potentially cause information and training bottlenecks as they limit naturalistic interactivity within the more advanced serious gaming platforms. Given the shortcomings of current interface design, we suggest a human-computer interface framework that includes perceptual user interface components and an open source serious game testbed. We discuss a multimodal framework called bio-reckoning that integrates brain-computer interface techniques, eye tracking, and facial recognition within EDGE, the U.S. Army's newest serious game based training tool. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.