
The Norwegian Army is using the Oculus Rift to drive tanks - bjansn
http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/5/5682942/the-norwegian-army-is-using-the-oculus-rift-to-drive-tanks
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EliRivers
I did this for a UK-based defence company back in 2002. I used a single top
mounted lens that was like a fisheye, but more so (that is, more than a
hemisphere of view) with a helmet-mounted inertial box to track the direction
of view the driver was looking in. The entire more-than-a-hemisphere of
captured imagery was post-processed to match what the driver would see were
the tank transparent in the direction he was looking. Lag was good enough that
you could drive around a car park with it. Not quite so swish as this, true,
but cost about the same back then as this does now (a few thousand all in for
the single prototype - would have been much less in production). "See-through
armour", as the phrase we used as the time had it. We had plans to fill in
blind spots on request with additional cameras, and a recording was kept so
that at a later time, someone could play back the tank's journey but look
wherever they liked (we hypothesised sticking it on vehicles in hot places so
that after a vehicle patrol anyone interest could have a good look at
everything, or play back any incidents).

The UK MOD (or rather, one of their gatekeepers at the time) weren't
interested so we binned it. I expect they were only interested in solutions
costing millions of pounds. :)

