Infrared and Intertial Tracking in the Immersive Audio Environment for Enhanced Military Training

The Immersive Audio Environment (IAE) was designed to provide an effective military training facility. It's efficacy at synthesizing sounds from desired directions and also the ability to synthesize moving sounds has been previously reported. This paper discusses the addition of a tracking system to evaluate subject training performance. Numerous tracking systems have been developed for tracking in immersive environments. Some examples include using head mounted web cams, visible light cameras mounted on the support structure, or even single camera tracking as in commercially available entertainment. Our system uses a combination of an existing infrared tracking system and a specially designed system of inertial tracking. This paper presents tests and results to evaluate the accuracy of the tracking system with respect to our application and verifies the efficacy of using the IAE for training enhancement.