The decisions made by an Air Attack Supervisor (AAS) helicopter co-pilots in aerial firefighting have critical and immediate impacts. It is difficult to always make fast, high quality decisions due to the mental and physical stress being experienced. Real world training exercises have limitations such as safety, cost, time and difficulty in reproducing events, making frequent training infeasible. Virtual Reality (VR) offers new training opportunities, but it is challenging to create a virtual environment with the analogous level of stress experienced in the real-world. In this paper, we investigate the use of a multi-user, collaborative, multi-sensory (vision, audio, tactile) VR system to produce a realistic training environment for practising aerial firefighting training scenarios. We focus on a comparison between our VR training system, an equivalent real-world field training and an existing radio-only exercise currently in use, where we compare Heart-Rate Variability (HRV) and self reported stress using the Short Stress State Questionnaire (SSSQ). We conducted the study with real trainee AAS firefighters to determine the effectiveness of the system. Our results show that there were no significant differences between the VR training exercise and the real-world exercise in terms of the level of stress, measured by HRV, and no significant difference between VR and radio-only exercises, as reported by the SSSQ.

Situation Awareness (SA) is an essential skill in Air Attack Supervision (AAS) for aerial based wildfire firefighting. The display types used for Virtual Reality Training Systems (VRTS) afford different visual SA depending on the Field of View (FoV) as well as the sense of presence users can obtain in the virtual environment. We conducted a study with 36 participants to evaluate SA acquisition in three display types: a high-definition TV (HDTV), an Oculus Rift Head-Mounted Display (HMD) and a 270° cylindrical simulation projection display called the SimPit. We found a significant difference between the HMD and the HDTV, as well as with the SimPit and the HDTV for the three levels of SA.

For the clinical community, there is great need for objective, quantitative and valid measures of the factors contributing to motor dysfunction. Currently, there are no standard protocols to assess motor dysfunction in various patient groups, where each medical discipline uses subjectively scored clinical tests, qualitative video analysis, or marker-based motion capturing. We investigate the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) combined with serious gaming and marker-less tracking of the hand to facilitate efficient, cost-effective and patient-friendly methods for evaluation of upper extremity motor dysfunction in different patient groups. First, the design process of the game and the system architecture of the AR framework are described. To provide unhindered assessment of motor dysfunction, patients should operate with the system in a natural way and be able to understand their actions in the virtual AR world. To test this in our system, we conducted a usability study with five healthy people (aged between 57-63) on three different modalities of visual feedback for natural hand interaction with AR objects. These modalities are: no augmented hand, partial augmented hand (tip of index finger and tip of thumb) and a full augmented hand model. The results of the study show that a virtual representation of the fingertips or hand improves the usability of natural hand interaction.

In this video, "Nao Haka", four robots and a haka leader perform a traditional Maori Haka. The Haka leader, who performs the main actions is supported by Aldebaran Nao Robots, which are controlled by an external performer, using a Microsoft Kinect as the input device. This device allows for full-body user tracking. This Video was made as a supportive gesture towards the All Blacks Rugby World Cup Campaign 2011.