The developer of shipping's first augmented reality navigation app knows how to get people excited
By Ryan Skinner (email)
Chuck Benton's the man behind a game every American male of my generation knew and loved, or feared - "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards". This was the embodiment of Space Invaders and Missile Command players coming of age. The game exploded onto the market, even though its developers were scared to market it. The market knows what it likes, and it's desperate to have it.
Fast-forward a couple decades and stints working with flight simulators, then simulations for the US Army, and lastly the US Navy. Now Benton is sitting on another product that users love, even if they don't know if they should. Together with the US Navy, Benton and his company Technology Systems Inc. have developed a unique augmented reality system for marine navigators. The basic system works on bridge hardware, but a pilot version also works off an iPhone.
"If you look at accidents in the merchant marine, you'll find a pattern whereby officers fail to convert a number of 2D inputs into a correct 3D understanding of the scenario. This thought process fails. We've automated that process," says Benton.
Basically, Benton's system (called ARVCOP) mounts a wide-angle camera on the bow of a vessel, then gathers information inputs from charts, radar, a thermal imager and other sources and paints a picture for the navigator. "Augmented reality is about creating a simulation, a surrogate for reality. Then you strip away everything from your simulation except key information elements that are geo-referenced," says Benton.
How does it perform though? "There's a test methodology from NASA that's often used for heads-up displays. Here you give someone a navigational task, and ask him or her to do another task simultaneously (specifically, identify a random series of numbers as odd or even). Basically, you figure out how much brain power you have left after tying up part of your thoughts with navigation tasks.
"When using ARVCOP, operators' ability to do additional tasks increased 334 per cent. Basically, this gives a navigator much more assurance in a high-stress scenario," says Benton.
Benton describes how an acquaintance uses the system to speed through an ice-strewn inland waterway at 40 knots in the dark in a small craft.
For the time being, the cost and performance are at the military level. One such system will set you back 60 - 70,000 dollars. "It's been popular with things like amphibious assault vehicles. The military needs to deal with navigation AND military tasks at the same time. But there's no reason that this couldn't be commercialized more broadly."
Is ARVCOP an ECDIS on steroids? Maybe. It's certainly addictive. "People who've used this love it. They get hooked on it, and can't imagine not having it." Sounds like a new "Leisure Suit Larry"...
Thats a pretty amazing bit of tech!
Just goes to show that all that time spent playing Leisure Suit Larry didn't go to waste!
S.
Posted by: Sean | February 12, 2010 at 07:55 PM
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Posted by: carled | August 04, 2010 at 07:20 AM