Exploration Sandbox for Augmented Reality in Armored Vehicles

Augmented Reality (AR) has become a mature and widely applicable technology in safety-critical domains. In particular, in armored military vehicles, AR has the potential to greatly enhance Situational Awareness (SA) by integrating information such as position and terrain data. However, effective use of this information by armored vehicle crews can be challenging, especially in time-critical situations where information overload and the need to maintain awareness of the environment can hinder effectiveness. The adoption of AR in military vehicles is still in its early stages, with ongoing research, development, and standardization efforts. To address this challenge, a dedicated user interface (UI) has been created for developers and stakeholders' called the Exploration Sandbox. The Exploration Sandbox allows users to explore and customize augmentations in real time based on their specific needs and the situation they are currently experiencing. The exploration process consisted of an initial development phase and two studies, with the proposed system being adapted based on the results of the first study. Throughout the process, key aspects such as setup, scenarios and some participants remained consistent to ensure comparability, and the results showed promising evidence of improved Situational Awareness with AR. The studies were carried out in an armored research vehicle of the German Armed Forces. This paper provides a detailed description of the system and its co-systems used, the underlying methodology, the investigations conducted, and a comprehensive overview of the results. This paper was originally presented at the NATO Science and Technology Organization Symposium (ICMCIS) organized by the Information Systems Technology (IST)Scientific and Technical Committee, IST-209-RSY - the ICMCIS, held in Oeiras, Portugal, 13–14 May 2025