Assessing the Effectiveness and the Global Trends of Virtual Reality Technology as Part of Military Training Programmes Attended by Sri Lanka Army within the Past Decade

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, whether that environment is a simulation of the real world or an imaginary world. It is the key to experiencing, feeling and touching the past, present and the future. It is the medium of creating our own world, our own customized reality. In military, new technologies are used to improve the process of training and development of skills of military people. Virtual Reality and its use in military applications has long been discussed, one of the main challengers face by country like Sri Lanka is lack of knowledge about devices and unaffordable price for military institutes. Simulators and virtual environments are powerful tools to train people in "reality-like" situations with various of training environments that Sri Lanka does not have. For the years Sri Lankan militarists participated to trainings which used Virtual Reality technology as aid of training program. This militarist have experience the difference between virtual training environment and live environment training. Implementing Virtual Reality training has the potential to create high quality, competence-based solider with high mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, high performance, effort and frustration level. Soldiers can involve in interactive scenarios with Virtual environment that would have been possible in previous years. The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic review to determine the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) training in Military. Most significantly, this study also provides a baseline for evidence that virtual reality is most suitable and trending technology for effective training than typical training programs.