Company insight
Haptic technology could revolutionise navigation
Technology that uses touch as the primary sense has long been seen as having potential for navigational assistance, but practical applications of the idea are only just seeing the light of day. Martijn van der Leeden of Teijin Smart Safety and Wouter Vos of Elitac Wearables explain the revolutionary capability of the Mission Navigation Belt.
important destination and trying to remain stealthy – so as not to give away their location – and also vigilant in order to spot potential threats. In this situation, taking their eyes off their surroundings to look at a GPS device or shining a torch onto a map could spell disaster. This is the problem presented by the seemingly inescapable trade-off between traditional navigation methods and situational awareness. The eyes and ears can either be used to detect threats or to communicate and navigate. Traditional navigation compromises situational awareness because it requires soldiers to take their focus away from their surroundings to check screens and maps, or listen to audio instructions. By enhancing the Dutch Army’s soldier systems with the Teijin Mission Navigation Belt, that problem has been solved. “Haptics allow soldiers to keep their eyes, ears and hands free,” says Wouter Vos, senior researcher at Elitac Wearables.
P
icture soldiers deep in enemy territory, moving through hostile terrain towards a strategically
“If you are moving through a forest you want to travel lightly and quietly. You don’t want to give away your location. So, we started testing haptic devices, initially in the jungle environment, and compared them with a standard GPS device. The results were very promising.”
A new sense of direction Haptics, which convey information through tactile sensations, have been on Nato’s radar since at least 2008, when it began investigating tactile displays for navigation and communication in air, sea and land environments based on the work of Dutch research organisation TNO. Similarly, the US military has been investigating the progress of multisensory displays to support soldier movement, communication and targeting for more than ten years. Vos, who previously worked at TNO, was involved in research into haptic systems before moving to Elitac, where he has worked on the development of the Mission Navigation Belt. Teijin Smart Safety is responsible for the commercialisation of the MNB in the market.
“TNO is purely a research organisation, it does not produce products or commercialise concepts”, he explains. “Elitac was founded independently with the idea to create the MNB and other products using haptic technology.” The MNB frees up soldiers’ hands, eyes and ears to concentrate on their surroundings while providing navigational instructions through the underutilised sense of touch. It comprises a lightweight belt with an internal compass to measure a soldier’s torso orientation relative to the surroundings, and a series of small vibrating elements that convey directional information around the waist.
Using these vibrations, the MNB indicates the location of the next waypoint on a soldier’s planned route, enabling the operator to intuitively sense where to head, without defining the best route to reach that destination. All of the soldier’s other senses remain free to scan the surrounding area for threats, move quietly and choose the best route to the waypoint. “We always talk about navigation and communication being very important, but they are secondary activities for a soldier,” says Martijn van der Leeden, new business development manager at Teijin Smart Safety. “So we add a third sense to free up sight and hearing for the primary task of being aware of surroundings and keeping an eye on the enemy.”
The MNB proved to be effective in allowing soldiers to receive navigation cues while operating a vehicle. 32
Modern soldiers already have access to incredible, high-tech navigation systems, but all require them to keep constantly checking screens or listen to audible cues, which makes an already dangerous job even more hazardous because it impairs situational awareness. With the MNB, soldiers can use their senses for the task at hand, and there is no risk of audio cues being drowned out by other sounds.
Defence & Security Systems International /
www.defence-and-security.com
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