Xbox Controllers for Military Use

Last week I was involved in an interesting exercise up at UNT where a group of graduate students sat around playing with modern video games. I say modern, to distinguish them from casual games such as Windows Solitaire or Bejeweled or one of the many other free and easy-to-access titles with which most people are familiar.

The game our group spent the most time with was Mortal Kombat IV, played on the Xbox. I am somewhat familiar with the Mortal Kombat series, recalling the arcade title from my youth which swallowed a few of my quarters back in the day, and I’m familiar with the Xbox, myself a proud owner of the latest Xbox 360. What was most intriguing about watching folks in the room (ranging in age from mid-thirties to mid-forties) was the reaction folks had with the Xbox controller.

The game itself provided much amusement, as grad students vicariously duked it out with one another; much laughter and good natured fun ensued. What was intriguing in the exercise was to watch as people, perhaps for the first time, learned to use the Xbox controller. Once one person figured out the key to maneuvering their virtual fighter on the screen, the information was passed along. As each person took a turn with the controls, they struggled and caught on and were eventually able to make their characters do something. It’s a complicated controller, with multiple joysticks and buttons. It can be rather intimidating to a first timer.

This exercise reminded me of a recent article on the Army.mil site that made the rounds on Digg.com early in February. The article showed a live fire exercise at Ft. Bliss, in which a soldier was pictured guiding a military robot using an Xbox controller. It turns out that many military items are specced to include USB controllers, and the Xbox controller is indeed USB-based.

The US Military is one of the most efficient organizations in the world when it comes to training people. In just a few months the military can take 18-year-old recruits and turn them into specialized soldiers. Apparently, according to one of the comments on Digg, our military is using Xbox controllers because many of the recruits are already familiar with the device. This speeds training when helping soldiers learn how to operate specialized equipment.

This line of thinking, of course, is absolutely brilliant. Why waste time training kids on the controls of some device when one can simply plug in a joystick which they already know and love?

 

 

References:

Army News Service (2007, February 2). Soldiers testing FCS technology give thumbs up. [Online]. Available:
http://www.army.mil/-news/2007/02/02/1636-soldiers-testing-
fcs-technology-give-thumbs-up/