Successful operation of military aviation depends on effective pilot training. The current training capabilities of the United States Air Force might not be sufficient to meet the demand for new pilots. To help resolve this issue, this study focused on developing a prototype of an adaptive virtual reality (VR) training system. The system was built leveraging the three key elements of an adaptive training system including the trainee’s performance measures, adaptive logic, and adaptive variables. The prototype was based on a procedure for an F-16 cockpit and included adaptive feedback, temporal display features, and various difficulty levels to help trainees maintain an optimal level of cognitive workload while completing their training. An experiment with 20 human participants was conducted, and a trend favoring the use of adaptive training was identified. Results suggested that adaptive training could improve performance and reduce workload as compared to the traditional non-adaptive VR-based training. Implementation of adaptive VR training has the potential to reduce training time and cost. The results from this study can assist in developing future adaptive VR-training systems.

军用航空的成功运行取决于有效的飞行员培训。美国空军目前的训练能力可能不足以满足对新飞行员的需求。为了帮助解决这个问题，本研究重点开发自适应虚拟现实 (VR) 训练系统的原型。该系统是利用自适应培训系统的三个关键要素构建的，包括受训者的表现测量、自适应逻辑和自适应变量。该原型基于 F-16 驾驶舱的程序，包括自适应反馈、时间显示功能和各种难度级别，以帮助受训者在完成训练时保持最佳的认知工作量水平。进行了一项有 20 名人类参与者的实验，并发现了有利于使用适应性训练的趋势。结果表明，与传统的非自适应 VR 训练相比，自适应训练可以提高表现并减少工作量。实施自适应 VR 训练有可能减少训练时间和成本。这项研究的结果可以帮助开发未来的自适应 VR 训练系统。