Helmet-Mounted Displays: - USAARL - The - U.S. Army

PREFACE
Over the past 30 years, there have been innumerable articles and
scientific papers which address the design and performance of helmet- and
head-mounted display systems. A large portion of this book is the result of
a careful and comprehensive analysis of this literature. With the fielding
of various military systems, research within this area has accelerated
greatly since the mid-1980s. While this book is intended to provide a fairly
comprehensive overview of this area of technology and its interface with
a human observer, it is not exhaustive.
Only a few comprehensive books currently are available on helmetmounted
displays. Most definitive is Melzer’s and Moffitt’s Head Mounted
Displays: Designing for the user (McGraw Hill, 1997). Our offering
differs from theirs in two major ways. First, we focus on the use of helmetmounted
displays in rotary-wing aircraft (helicopters) in Army aviation. It
is worth noting that the U.S. Army has flown with image intensifier helmetmounted
displays (Night Vision Goggles) since the early 1970s and has
fielded the integrated helmet-mounted display (the Integrated Helmet and
Display Sight System (IHADSS), manufactured by Honeywell, Inc.,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, and used in the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter).
Second, the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory (USAARL),
Fort Rucker, Alabama, has over 25 years of experience with the design and
performance of helmet- and head-mounted display systems. From 1972 to
1998, USAARL has published over 135 reports and articles dealing with
helmet-mounted displays and the most important issue of interfacing these
displays to the user (aviator). USAARL’s helmet-mounted display program
is multidisciplined, combining research and development with testing and
evaluation, running the gamut of optics, vision, acoustics, audition,
biodynamics, safety, and human factors.
The authors also would like to call the reader’s attention to the annual
SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, Bellingham,
Washington, conferences on head- and helmet-mounted displays and the
conference proceedings which provide a review of ongoing research and
testing of these display systems.
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