Hand-Held Support for Spatial Awareness for the Dismounted Soldier

This contribution presents a summary of activities performed in an ongoing military research project aiming at investigating the impact of navigational support on spatial awareness. Investigated tasks are e.g. indication of direction to objects beyond visual range with and without navigational support, display size, performance time, and use of GPS device in darkness. The results indicate that the ability to keep track of targets in the terrain without a technical aid is very poor, but with a GPS device targets can be indicated with relatively high precision. Precision on target indication is slightly better with a larger display, it seems possible to indicate as fast as 5 seconds with a GPS device without impairments of precision, and a GPS device can be used for target indication in darkness. Spatial ability measured by PTSOT can discriminate important aspects of spatial ability with direct relevance for navigation and target indication.