Guevara XR Soldier
- Patrick Byrne
- Jan 25, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 18, 2021
The military sector has been a driving force behind the development of Extended Reality. This article aims to outline these developments and show how they could have benefitted Che Guevara and his Jolly Band of Guerrilla warriors.
What is XR?
To better understand Extended Reality's future capabilities and applications, we first need to learn about the constituents XR encompasses. These are a conglomeration of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality.
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality uses computer technology to create a simulated experience that can be similar to or in complete contrast to the real world. Standard Virtual Reality systems use either VR headsets or multi-projected environments to generate realistic visuals and sounds. The VR headset where the user interface offers a digital experience where one can immerse onerself in any created 3D environment instead of just watching on a conventional 2D computer screen.
Augmented Reality
In contrast to Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information across a multiple, if not all sensory modulates. AR can be defined as a system that encapsulates three basic features. A combination of the real and virtual world, a real-time interaction, and accurate 3d registration of virtual and real objects. The overlaid sensory information can be constructive, additive to the natural environment, or be destructive, meaning the natural environment is mass to show virtual objects. In this way, Augmented Reality alters the real world's perception. Whereas VR completely replaces the user's real-world environment with a simulated one. There are many camera-based AR apps available presently which one can use with ones smartphone presently. The Measure app, which uses your camera, can be used to measure any object such as table you window frames.
Mixed Reality
Finally the last in our shortlist is mixed Reality. MR merges real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualisations where physical and digital objects coexist and interact in real-time. As the name implies, mixed Reality is the mixing of the real and virtual world. MR does not exclusively occur in either the physical or the virtual world but is rather a hybrid of the two. MR is similar to Augmented Reality, but there is a crucial difference. Mixed Reality allows the virtual overlay of graphics to interact with the real world.
Application of XR for the training of Soldiers
The rapidly advancing technological progress seen in military training could have been very influential in training Guevara's resistance fighters. The military sector has been one of the first to implement VR to train land, maritime and air forces. They also have been a driving force behind the development of VR, it being the largest investor in the technology.
The most advanced military training techniques in the market place are the Dismounted Soldier Training System, the first virtual reality training system for the US military. The Dismounted Soldier Training is just one of the ways the US Army is developing the 21st-century warrior. It's a 57 million-dollar system unveiled for the army in 2012 by a company called Intelligent Decisions. Soldiers are trained for real-life combat scenarios in a virtual space. You can go into this system and train in any urban, woodland or desert environment depending on the training requirements.
The system's main components are the head-mounted display that supplies the visual stimulus and arm and leg sensors detect your motion. As for the gun, when you press it against your shoulder, the scope appears. The 15-pound backpack processes each action sending soldiers data out to a network to operate as a team. The soldiers can talk to each other and move in real-time. A virtual mission can make live training more efficient saving time and money.
Computerised training also allows commanders to insert unforeseen obstacles and enemies into the mission to test their soldier's versatility. There is a lot of flexibility as to what choices can be made in alternative scenarios. In real-time, the operator and the leadership can customise situations to see how the soldiers react and prepare them for anything.
The session is recorded and afterwords the troops undergo after-action review (AAR). The leadership scrutinises in detail what the objectives were and how to learn from each scenario and ensure the training's full effectiveness.
Benefits of using XR for training soldiers
This system not only facilitates the immersion of users in a virtual yet safe world, but it also provides military personal and defence contractors with a way to gain valuable experience of dangerous or life-threatening environments from a training room's safety.
VR removes the associated costs of recreating large battle scenarios, thus massively reducing training budgets, money guerrilla armies cannot waste. VR can put a trainee in several different situations and environments and can build skills, teach awareness, and provide a valuable experience which will count when real-life requires it.
Trainees could use VR to experience jumping from an aircraft and gaining an awareness of parachute jumping's sensation and disorientation without the associated real-world flight costs. They can be placed in fighter jets, tanks, armoured vehicles, or submarines experiencing the claustrophobic and cramped conditions, or placed in an active battlefield or patrolled through a hostile environment. They are learning skills such as navigation, teamwork and survival in difficult and compromising situations while achieving striking realism. This technology can provide a new level of engagement.
Finally, VR is also used in PTSD recovering therapy. VR makes it possible to thoroughly recreate the traumatising event while keeping the subject safe, enabling them to re-experience and overcome their fears. It can also provide a 'boot camp' experience to recruits, helping them adapt quickly with less anxiety, to military life.
The fast learning and low-cost aspects of these training methods would be essential in Che Guevara’s training process. It would give The Guevara Guerrilla’s the upper hand when attacking enemy forces and ensure they are equipped for any situation they find themselves in.
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