Behavioural change as the core of warfighting: So now what?

This article focuses on understanding human behaviour by providing an insight into its underlying mechanisms, and aims to widen the view on the military possibilities for achieving mission goals. The article intends to trigger a more behaviour-oriented view on military operations: how military actions can influence behaviour and thereby achieve...

SIMS – Smart Information for Mission Success: Enhancing joint mission planning and training

In the European Defence Agency’s Joint Investment Programme on Force Protection, the SIMS consortium is working on the delivery of a Proof of Concept on innovative battlefield information dissemination to enhance mission planning, execution, assessment, and training. Primarily asymmetric threats and possible countermeasures for force protection...

Field-based validation of a tactile navigation device

In this paper, we present three field-based evaluations of a tactile land navigation system. In Experiment 1, we transition from a laboratory setting to rugged terrain used to train US Army soldier land navigation. Navigation in this challenging terrain requires careful attention to one's surroundings. Participants navigated 3 waypoints along...

Tactile actuator technology

Over time, a wide variety of tactile stimulation devices have been designed and implemented in an attempt to minimize power requirements and weight while simultaneously maximizing the stimulus effect. Consequently, the hardware is widely varied and has specific strengths and weaknesses. This section discusses the basic features universal to...

Tactile land navigation for dismounted soldiers

Brain Machine Interfaces: Technology status, applications and the way to the future

Brain Machine Interfaces (BMIs) enable direct communication between the brain or nervous system and a machine without involving the sensory-motor system. BMIs are an embryonic technology and remarkable accomplishments have recently been reported. BMIs have a high potential and possibly an enormous impact on society, and may evoke a revolution in...

Optimizing the presentation of UAV images in an attack helicopter cockpit

Future Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) will collaborate more directly with military manned aircraft. TNO Defence, Security and Safety investigated how to present UAV sensor images in a fighter aircraft cockpit in order to maximize target identification and flying performance. Ten military pilots performed several Close Air Support missions in a...

Daytime running lights: Costs or benefits?

The present study deals with the possibility that road users in the vicinity of a vehicle with daytime running lights (DRL) would suffer from a decreased conspicuity because of (he presence of that vehicle. In an experiment the primary effects of DRL on the conspicuity of other road users were investigated, with particular attention to other...

Tele-Presence: Bringing the operator back in the loop

The importance of uninhabited vehicles in military environments has been recognised for many years. Much progress has been made in fields such as robotics and data communications, but not so much on the human factors issues. This is partly due to the trend to strive for ever higher levels of system autonomy, leaving the operator the task of...

Detecting drowsiness of drivers with a deterministic hypovigilance diagnosis module