When Lucky Palmer set out to create the Oculus Rift, he envisioned a device that would revolutionize virtual reality by creating a low-cost solution available to every industry, not just the video game industry. The latest unique adoption of the Rift’s unique capabilities can be seen in the Norwegian army, which recently announced that it’s testing the possibility equipping tank operators with Oculus Rifts to expand their field of view from inside the tank.
The system improves operator visibility by allowing a 185° view of the surrounding battlefield courtesy of video feed captured from cameras placed around the tank. The video feed is further augmented by overlaying vital information such as the vehicle’s orientation, speed, and tilt, not ironically unlike a video game.
“With the Oculus you can turn and see in every direction around the vehicle. This means that you can look straight down in front of the vehicle. You can turn your head to the left, look down and see your entire track, which gives you a complete overview of the vehicle,” explains Pal Vindfallet from Making View, the Norwegian camera technology company contracted to design the camera system.
Using the system, soldiers will be able to navigate the battlefield without lifting the tank's hatch and creating vulnerability. “It's very useful when you have to close all your hatches,” said Major Ola Petter Odden of the army's Combat Lab. “Normally you would be more or less blind because there is armor all around you. With this system you can see just as well as if you were seeing out the hatch.”
If the test’s outcome proves favorable, the technology has the potential to revolutionize military vision system through drastic cost reduction; according to TuTV, the Norwegian television station that first broke the story, the average tank’s camera vision costs $100,000 versus $2,000, the cost of Making View’s camera system. Furthermore, previous military goggles cost $35,650, whereas a pair of Oculus Rift are $350.
The system functions by obtaining video feed from four cameras with spherical lenses placed along the front and sides of the tank. This data is then transferred through a standard commercial PC to the Oculus Rift, creating a virtual representation of the surrounding area after software wraps the spherical image back into normal view, explains Pal Vindfallet.
The primary concern stemming out of the initial tests with real tank operators echoes the same issue affecting most Oculus Rift users: Extended use causes nausea. The Norwegian army doesn’t see this as much of a big deal, given that tank battles are historically typically short-lived. It suspects that operators can simply use the hatch for long transportation, only switching to the Rift in combat situations.
Regardless of the military’s endurance, Making View must determine a means of eliminating the camera’s vulnerability to ammunition, an issue that plagues all tank camera systems. In the meantime, perhaps Oculus’ access to Facebook’s big bucks will permit the VR subsidiary to finally rectify the motion sickness issue.
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