Design and Evaluation of an Adaptive Virtual Reality-Based Training System

Successful operation of military aviation depends on effective pilot training. The current training capabilities of the United States Air Force might not be sufficient to meet the demand for new pilots. To help resolve this issue, this study focused on developing a prototype of an adaptive virtual reality (VR) training system. The system was built leveraging the three key elements of an adaptive training system including the trainee’s performance measures, adaptive logic, and adaptive variables. The prototype was based on a procedure for an F-16 cockpit and included adaptive feedback, display features, and various difficulty levels to help trainees maintain an optimal level of cognitive workload while completing their training. After conducting a pilot study with 14 participants, a trend favoring the use of adaptive training was identified. Results suggest that adaptive training could improve performance and reduce workload as compared to the traditional non-adaptive VR-based training. Further work is required to further validate the findings with a larger sample size. Implementation of adaptive VR training has the potential to reduce training time and cost. The results from this study can assist in developing future adaptive VR-training systems