SBIR-STTR Award

The aims and opportunities of our adding on VR-Assessment-Modules (VRAM) to existing small arms training systems are focused on providing an easy-to-understand, ease-to-use rehabilitation interface customized for medical staff uses for assessments of return-to-duty status. This VRAM effort opportunistically integrates and exploits A2-T2/ODU ongoing rehabilitation, simulation&training, and next-generation multi-modal interface efforts funded by OSD, US Army, DARPA, and our own IR&D efforts with VA Hospitals and other TBI groups. VRAM enables our research team to evolve our current limited assessment features that are narrowly focused to a much wider context and user base. For example our current audio/visual assessments built-in to our Internet-Based Rehab product are narrowly focused on rehabilitation for mild to moderate TBI recovering warfighters to regain their “listening-skills”. We envision near-term evolution to much wider wholistic return-to-duty status assessments by modularly adding on to existing operational training systems used for military certifications and combining medically useful exercise instrumented-equipment already in use. We selected adding on VRAM first to small arms trainers based upon

Keywords:
Virtual Reality, Rehabilitation, Mtbi, Game-Based Technologies, Military Simulations, Serious Games

Our Virtual-Reality-Assessment-Modules (VRAM) successful efforts already include developing functional prototypes of small arms trainers that enable advanced assessment screening capacities with rapid sequential or simultaneous cognitive and physiological loading on militarily relevant tasks. Our innovations include exploiting exponential differences that are easily detectable within impaired individuals’ performance under specific conditions that include both cognitive and physical stresses. Beyond conventional performance, temporal, and physiological assessment measures we have added emotional face reading, attentional eye-tracking, and advanced audio/visual hearing and listening assessments as additional assessment dimensions, complete with medical staff focused visualization and feedback displays. Further, we have wearable head/body/limb tracking from COTS wireless game controllers, along with 2010 upgrades scheduled to Project NATAL where “you are the controller”. Our extremely low-cost VRAM system designs and functional prototypes enable rapid setup and use within typically sized medical exam rooms or gyms. Users can select from PCs, Game-Consoles, or Handheld Smart Devices for standalone or networked uses within web browsers for convenience, or as thick clients as required by military and Veterans Administration secure networks. VRAM also supports modular add-on use with existing operational small arms training, medical, and exercise systems, enabling entirely new classes of assessment for medical, operational, and sports enhancements.

Keywords:
Tba