Marine’s Award-Winning NPS Thesis Explores Mixed-Reality for Training Naval Aviators

U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Thomas A. Cecil, a June 2024 graduate from NPS’ Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation (MOVES) program and winner of Commander George L. Phillips Award for top MOVES graduate, focused his award-winning thesis research on advancing one of these technologies – mixed-reality (MR) head-mounted displays (HMD) – a key contributor to naval aviation’s plan for distributed, low-cost simulation-based training. 

The accolades for Cecil’s work didn’t stop on campus. His work has been selected as one of six nominees for the Best Paper Award at the upcoming 2024 Interservice/Industry Training Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC). Cecil will be on hand to present his nominated work with his NPS MOVES advisors on Tuesday, Dec. 3. 

“My thesis investigated the effects of mixed-reality, head-mounted displays on cognitive workload with an eye towards the implications for Naval Aviation,” he said. Cecil’s study employed the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory’s (USAARL) Multiple Attribute Task Battery (MATB), with participants completing three trials of aviation-related subtasks through touchscreens and a joystick. 

“We varied the display method participants used to view the tracking subtask between trials,” Cecil explained, providing testers with a legacy simulator as well as two head-mounted mixed-reality displays, each using one of two primary display technologies, optical see-through (OST) and video see-through (VST). Cecil collected “subjective user assessments, objective performance metrics, and heart rate variability to determine if the display methods affect the user’s cognitive workload,” he explained. 

Cecil’s results demonstrate the inherent challenges in transitioning to new technologies, and how humans engage with them. 

“We found significant differences between the display methods,” he said. “Users of MR HMDs demonstrated poorer performance, slower reaction times, subjectively higher cognitive workloads, and increased simulator sickness symptoms.”

With the advancement of live, virtual, constructive training environments, emerging technologies will play a major role in the training of tomorrow’s naval aviators, as will next generation virtual, augmented and mixed-reality displays. Areas for further research, detailed in Cecil’s thesis, offer insights into understanding how to optimally pair the training functions with the right technology. 

“Further research needs to investigate these impacts on actual aircraft while conducting training sorties to identify which training events are best suited to legacy or MR technology,” Cecil said. 

Collaboration with both the USAARL, as well as the Naval Air Warfare Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD) proved to be key enablers to Cecil’s success. Through updates to its task battery, USAARL officials made critical changes that were essential to Cecil’s study design. 

“USAARL also proved instrumental in helping me process the data and conduct the statistical analysis,” he added.

“NAWCTSD proved helpful in the concept development stage by helping me understand the limitations of the work that had been done up to that point and the technology being used in development of MR simulators,” Cecil said. “They also lent us a headset that we used to build and validate our test bench.”

Following his award-winning research at NPS, Cecil is now stationed in Okinawa, Japan, where he serves as the director of the III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) Tactical Exercise Control Group (TECG).

“We provide the MEF with wargame simulation and virtual reality capabilities in support of integrated Marine Air-Ground Task Force training,” said Cecil. “This includes providing planning, coordination, and technical support to III MEF and its major subordinate commands in support of participation in joint, unilateral, and bilateral training in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility. We also maintain and operate tactical level virtual reality and wargame simulations.”

“My education at NPS has allowed me to hit the ground running with a solid foundational knowledge of the technology on hand,” he continued. “This translates into being able to focus my time and energy on leading our team rather than treading water trying to understand the systems and how they are employed.”

NPS, located in Monterey, California, provides defense-focused graduate education, including classified studies and interdisciplinary research, to advance the operational effectiveness, technological leadership, and warfighting advantage of the Naval service. Established in 1909, NPS offers master’s and doctorate programs to Department of Defense military and civilians, along with international partners, to deliver transformative solutions and innovative leaders through advanced education and research.