RAAF Trials AR for Virtual Operations Room

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is experimenting with Augmented Reality (AR) technology under its Plan Jericho innovation programme, resulting in the creation of a virtual operations room of the future.

Under Plan Jericho which aims to deliver rapid disruptive capability to the RAAF, its Disruptive Innovation team has been working towards a hybrid reality operations centre.

“This is what a future, agile Air Force looks like,” said the RAAF’s Head of Air and Space Capability, Air Vice Marshal Catherine Roberts. “We’re taking data to the people rather than people to the data."

Led by Wing Commander Alex Gibbs, the Jericho Disruptive Innovation team and a team of experts have developed a powerful virtual operations room which delivers an AR view of the world using Microsoft's HoloLens 2 headset.

“Users can quickly understand where all the various pieces are – for example aircraft, drones, elements on the ground – and they can make decisions at what we call ‘the speed of relevance’,” Gibbs said.

With a hologram of the battlespace projected in front of the user, personnel using the system can be anywhere, such as an aircraft, in a tent, or on a ship and not limited by their physical location.

Phase one of the project was completed last year at Williamtown and along with the lessons learned and a new improved user interface; the RAAF is proceeding with Phase 2 and rolling out the technology at every airbase in Australia.

Data from sensors, 3D terrain images and air-space boundaries are provided to the system, which uses Microsoft’s Azure cloud-based infrastructure to support sensors, data and users.

The Jericho team is partnering with the Department of Defence’s Chief Information Officer Group and Telstra to develop the hybrid reality operations centre.