MSU Fund Number: 360051 192700
Awarded Amount: $52,757

Principal Investigator: Dr. J. Edward Swan II

Objective:
The objective of the proposed work is to build the research infrastructure needed to conduct augmented reality (AR) perceptual research and engineering at the INST. AR is an emerging display technology that involves mixing computer graphics with a view of the real world, so that users perceive a mixture of real-world and computer-generated objects. With the advent of embedded and worn computers, AR promises to become a ubiquitous display and interaction technique with the potential to revolutionize the way many tasks are performed. As discussed in more detail below, our understanding of how humans perceive and cognate with AR-mediated information is at a very primitive level. AR displays do not give the same depth cues as the real world, and furthermore AR can be used to implement visualization techniques that have no real-world equivalent. One such technique, with many potential uses, is x-ray vision, where AR uses can perceive the location of objects which are located behind solid surfaces, such as, for example, the wiring and ducting that run behind solid walls. This proposal calls for support that the PI can use to (1) research, purchase, assemble, and configure necessary AR hardware for the laboratory infrastructure, and (2) engineer an augmented reality system and experimental control program. The purpose of this infrastructure will be to support (1) basic research into how perception operates when mediated through an AR display, (2) engineering unique AR display techniques, and (3) forming the infrastructure basis for seeking Federal support. This work is inherently interdisciplinary, and the PI will collaborate with colleagues at INST, MSU, and outside MSU. The PI will leverage his startup funds to achieve the proposed goals. The PI has spent the past 7 years at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), where he collaborated on the development of the Battlefield Augmented Reality System (BARS), an outdoor, mobile AR system to support situational awareness in complex urban environments. BARS is one of only approximately 5 AR systems of comparable maturity worldwide, and the only such system at a military laboratory. While at NRL the PI conducted human subject experiments investigating virtual and augmented reality. For the past two years the PI has been studying AR distance perception.