https://crsreports.congress.gov
Updated May 26, 2022
Military Applications of Extended Reality
Although commercial and consumer industries have been
investing in extended reality (XR) for decades, recent
advances have expanded the number of potential
applications for the U.S. military. Indeed, in February 2022,
the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research
and Engineering identified human-machine interfaces for
XR as 1 of 14 critical technology areas for the Department
of Defense (DOD). As DOD increases spending on XR and
related applications, Congress may consider the
implications for defense authorizations and appropriations,
military force structure, and cybersecurity.
Overview
XR encompasses three main categories of physical and
digital environments (Figure 1):
Virtual reality (VR), a fully immersive digital
environment (e.g., video games that place the user
within the virtual world of the game).
Augmented reality (AR), an overlay of digital
objects on physical environments (e.g., Instagram
filters that overlay preset digital effects on a user’s
videos or photographs).
Mixed reality (MR), a hybrid of physical and
digital environments in which physical and digital
objects can interact. Unlike AR, MR could enable
a user to manipulate physical or digital objects and
share their view of those objects with other users
within the same mixed reality environment (e.g.,
collaboratively marking adversary troop locations
on a projected digital map).
Figure 1. Main Categories of Extended Reality
Source: Tutorials Link, “Difference Between AR, VR, MR,” at
https://tutorialslink.com/Articles/Difference-Between-AR-VR-MR/973.
A number of advanced enabling capabilities, such as 5G
and edge computing—a type of computing that is done “at
or near the source of data”—are likely to expand XR
applications in the future. These capabilities could improve
data rates, increase user capacity, and reduce latency (i.e.,
time delay), all of which could support large-scale,
networked applications. DOD is currently testing 5G-
enabled applications of XR at Joint Base Lewis–McChord
(WA) and Joint Base San Antonio (TX).
Military Applications of Extended Reality
The U.S. military is exploring a range of applications for
XR, with research and development programs in each of the
services. These applications include tactical, flight,
maintenance, medical, and other training, as well as
warfighting.
Training
According to Under Secretary of Defense for Research and
Engineering Heidi Shyu, DOD intends to leverage “AR/VR
and live training ... [that is being matured] by the gaming
industry” as a basis for developing its own tailored XR
programs. Doing so could enable the military to conduct
training exercises that are too costly or dangerous to
conduct in physical environments, as well as enable
servicemembers in distant locations to train together.
For example, the Army’s Synthetic Training Environment
(STE)—an XR training environment intended to
complement or integrate with live training—seeks to enable
soldiers “to train where they will fight, with the partners
