Rapid Prototyping & Evaluation of Crew Stations to Support Manned-Unmanned teaming

Crew stations are one of the most important enablers of human-machine teaming on battlefields to support remote operations of robotic combat vehicles. Emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality offer opportunities to rapidly configure and test new crew interface concepts. However, what would be the appropriate fidelity and flexibility of virtual prototypes that produce user experience and performance comparable to the real-world? Based on Milgram and Kishino's reality-virtuality continuum [1], this project prototyped crew stations in (1) virtual environment (VE), (2) augmented virtuality (AV), and (3) augmented reality (AR) with varying fidelity and flexibility and evaluated user experience and performance as compared to the crew station prototyped in the (4) real environment (R). Preliminary results from our human-subject experiment show visual search time in AV and task completion time in AR are comparable to real-world conditions. Error rates, situation awareness, workload, and preference across AR, AV, and VR matched real-world. However, presence and usability were lower than real world, highlighting areas for improvement. These findings support AR, AV, and VR as promising tools for rapid prototyping, with future work targeting improved immersion, usability, and broader validation.