Impacts of Wearable Augmented Reality Displays on operator performance, Situation Awareness, and communication in safety-critical systems.

Wearable Augmented Reality Displays (WARDs) present situated, real-time information visually, providing immediate access to information to support decision making. The impacts of WARD use on operator performance, Situation Awareness (SA), and communication in one safety-critical system, marine transportation, were examined in a real-time physical simulator. WARD use improved operator trackkeeping performance, the practice of good seamanship, and SA, although operator responsiveness decreased.

Micro-fabricated stylus ion trap.

An electroformed, three-dimensional stylus Paul trap was designed to confine a single atomic ion for use as a sensor to probe the electric-field noise of proximate surfaces. The trap was microfabricated with the UV-LIGA technique to reduce the distance of the ion from the surface of interest. We detail the fabrication process used to produce a 150 μm tall stylus trap with feature sizes of 40 μm.