Augmented Reality as a Tool to Achieve Common Ground for Network based Operations

In complex collaborative situations, such as crisis management, actors from different domains and organizations must work together. This is especially evident in network based operations where virtually anyone in an organization should be able to contact someone else. However, collaborative work across organizational borders is not simple and confusion regarding use of terminology is not rare. This position paper presents a multi-user Augmented Reality (AR) application, where AR is used as a tool to aid crosscultural communication in networked operations. AR is a technique that merges real and virtual information and presents it in the field of view of the user. An individual can thus look at a physical object at the same time as the AR-system overlays that particular object with a digital image, literally replacing its appearance with something else. Other objects such as text can also be placed in the field of vision. Earlier research has shown that humans normally have to spend significant effort at establishing a shared understanding, a common ground, when entering a collaborative activity. The larger the cultural differences and the competence level of the involved is, the more effort is needed. In future, network-based, operations, it is highly likely that people from different organizations, backgrounds or even countries will have to cooperate in ad-hoc situations. This paper suggests a way of using AR as a tool for enabling cooperation between users with different backgrounds by presenting personalized representations of for example map objects in a command center. By doing so, valuable time that normally would be spent on debating the meaning of an object, like when a military commander has to explain a military symbol to a civilian decision maker, can be reduced. Even differences in language could to some extent be bridged. The paper explains the potential of AR in a collaborative scenario and suggests a design for a simple experiment to test the assumptions described.