Research News

Jay Alberts, PhD, Department of Biomedical Engineering, was awarded a $2 million grant from the Department of Defense to create a series of augmented reality assessment modules to help determine when military personnel who have sustained a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) can safely return to duty. Augmented reality, unlike virtual reality, allows the user to maintain contact with the physical world and people in it while interacting with virtual objects.

Currently, after a service member sustains an mTBI, there is no agreed upon, standardized method to assess his or her cognitive and motor skills or ability to interact and function within the unit.

The Troop READY project, a collaboration between Dr. Alberts and military experts, will test and use a “ruggedized” (fit for combat environments) version of the Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality system to create return-to-duty modules that objectively measure a service member’s performance of duties and activities. The modules will assess motor and cognitive demands that military members are likely to encounter in training and on the battlefield, and can also be used to make return predictions and recommendations.

Military personnel, including 165 cadets/officers and 165 enlisted members, will test the modules to assess everything from marching and cognitive skills, to performance under simulated combat conditions and interaction with fellow team members in small unit operations.

“This project will correct glaring omissions in the current return-to-duty process: the lack of standardization of assessment and use of tasks that replicate actual tasks performed by service members, and the service member’s capacity to interact and function effectively within their unit,” said Dr. Alberts. “This platform will enable a standardized and ecological guide to return-to-duty decision-making in austere or clinical environments, which may ultimately better protect the long-term health of our service men and women and facilitate overall troop readiness.”