NATO STO

The widespread availability of compact and powerful laser sources has made their employment against personnel a common occurrence. Dazzle attacks, including those perpetrated against pilots, may be carried out either by civilians using commercially available “laser pointers” or by military forces using specially developed laser dazzlers. While the effects of laser dazzle on vision are temporary, they can be significant if they occur during a critical task (i.e. landing an aircraft). Nevertheless, many effects of laser dazzling are still not well understood. To assess this knowledge gap, investigations were launched by SET-198/RTG ("Visible Laser Dazzle – Effects and Protection"). The results comprised models to describe the extent of dazzle effects in camera sensors and in the human eye. The follow-up group SET-249/RTG (“Laser Eye Dazzle – Threat Evaluation and Impact on Human Performance”) focused on the verification of the influence of laser dazzle on human task performance by developing and using a shooting simulator. By extending and refining the tasks, a wide range of results can be achieved that are useful for the training of military personnel. Simulated laser dazzling may also be used to conduct experiments to measure performance in the presence of laser dazzle. By creating laser dazzle effects in extended reality (XR), the performance effects of laser dazzle and even laser damage, e.g. scotomas and afterimages, may be determined.