![handle is hein.crs/govefbp0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service
Informing the legislative debate since 1914
January 4, 2022
Military Applications of Extended Reality
Although commercial and consumer industries have been
investing in extended reality (XR) for decades, recent
advances have expanded the number of potential
applications for the U.S. military. As the Department of
Defense (DOD) increases spending on these applications,
Congress may consider the implications for defense
authorizations and appropriations, military force structure,
and cybersecurity.
Overview
XR encompasses three main categories of physical and
digital environments (Figure 1):
Virtual reality (VR), a fully immersive digital
environment (e.g., video games that place the user
within the virtual world of the game).
Augmented reality (AR), an overlay of digital
objects on physical environments (e.g., Instagram
filters that overlay preset digital effects on a user's
videos or photographs).
Mixed reality (MR), a hybrid of physical and
digital environments in which physical and digital
objects can interact. Unlike AR, MR could enable
a user to manipulate physical or digital objects and
share their view of those objects with other users
within the same mixed reality environment (e.g.,
collaboratively marking adversary troop locations
on a projected digital map).
Figure I. Main Categories of Extended Reality
Source: Tutorials Link, Difference Between AR, VR, MR, at
https://tutorialslin k.com/Articles/Difference-Between-AR-VR-MR/973.
A number of advanced enabling capabilities, such as 5G
and edge computing-a type of computing that is done at
or near the source of data-are likely to expand XR
applications in the future. These capabilities could improve
data rates, increase user capacity, and reduce latency (i.e.,
time delay), all of which could support large-scale,
networked applications. DOD is currently testing 5G-
enabled applications of XR at Joint Base Lewis-McChord
(WA) and Joint Base San Antonio (TX).
Military Applications of Extended Reality
The U.S. military is exploring a range of applications for
XR, with research and development programs in each of the
services. These applications include tactical, flight,
maintenance, medical, and other training, as well as
warfighting.
Training
According to Under Secretary of Defense for Research and
Engineering Heidi Shyu, DOD intends to leverage AR/VR
and live training ... [that is being matured] by the gaming
industry as a basis for developing its own tailored XR
programs. Doing so could enable the military to conduct
training exercises that are too costly or dangerous to
conduct in physical environments, as well as enable service
members in distant locations to train together.
For example, the Army's Synthetic Training Environment
(STE)-an XR training environment intended to
complement or integrate with live training-seeks to enable
soldiers to train where they will fight, with the partners
they will fight with, and in complex operational
environments to include dense urban, woodland, jungle,
desert, and sub-terrain, before the first fight begins. STE is
to be designed to enable soldiers to more efficiently
increase proficiency through repetition. These factors
could, in turn, increase both readiness and lethality.
The Air Force uses XR for flight training-with the intent
of reducing cost, training time, and wear on aircraft. It is
also exploring XR for maintenance training and is in the
process of building virtual training hangars to enable
training anywhere and anytime on a variety of airframes.
Similarly, the Navy seeks to use XR to connect engineers
and maintainers, who could work together to address
maintenance issues across the globe in real-time.
DOD is also examining applications of XR for medical
training. According to the Air Force, XR could [increase]
the availability of training, without a need to increase
manpower availability for training setup. This application
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