Resolution Versus Field of View Trade-off for Monocular Night Vision Goggle Simulators

A field experiment was conducted to gain insight into the trade-offs between field of view (FOV) and resolution, with reference to the off-road mobility and target-detection capability of personnel using night vision goggles. Daytime simulators of night vision goggles were developed to represent all combinations of three levels of resolution (equivalent to 20/40, 20/80, and 20/120 Snellen acuities) and three FOVs (40 deg, 60 deg, and 80 deg). One product of the experiment was the formulation of a function that could be used to estimate human performance in traversing off-road terrain on foot. This trade-off function allows for the estimation of performance associated with any combination of resolution and FOV within the tested range. Another result was the identification of a significant interaction between FOV and resolution; for mobility errors, the effect of changes in resolution on performance increased as FOV decreased. For all dependent measures (errors, time, ratings, and targets), decreasing FOV had the most impact at the lowest level of resolution.Army Research Lab Aberdeen Proving Ground is the author of 'Resolution Versus Field of View Trade-off for Monocular Night Vision Goggle Simulators' with ISBN 9781423572398 and ISBN 1423572394.