Applicability of Virtual Environments as C4ISR Displays

New sensors, communication infrastructure, and information systems will make plenty of information about actual mission scenarios available. Innovative concepts like Network Centric Warfare (NCW) describe the consequent availability of this information for each command level at any time, at any place. But the huge amount of information may also lead to information overload for the human commander: Relevant information may be overseen. This might results into building a wrong mental model of the mission scenario and wrong decisions. Therefore, the development of new display paradigms and technology for information presentation is essential. They should be based on established procedures in military decision making and staff planning and allow the easy transfer of them. This article presents some example approaches of applying Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Environment (VE) technology as advanced Tactical Situation Display (TSD) for different military command levels. It is concluded that research on microergonomic (i.e. perceptual, motor capabilities for data visualization and data input) and macroergonomic topics (i.e. workload, situational awareness, decision making performance) is needed for a reasonable application of VE as a display of C4ISR systems.