Imagine you're an aviation mechanic standing on top of a helicopter chained to the flight deck of a ship on a stormy day, trying to keep your hold as the wind blows through a repair manual you're using to troubleshoot the helo's rotors.

Now imagine how much easier that would be if the step-by-step guide were mounted on a screen you could wear, and a flick of your finger could turn the pages.

That's just one of the problems the CNO's Rapid Innovation Cell hopes to solve with Ocean AR (for augmented reality) with technology available in gadgets like Google Glass.

"Augmented reality will be the future," CRIC member Lt. Joshua Steinman said Feb. 4 at the Naval Future Force Science and Technology Expo in Washington, D.C.

"What we're trying to do is illustrate to the fleet what it's going to mean for them, and then illustrate to flag officers what it's going to mean for them and for the future of naval warfare," he added.

About two years ago, Steinman got CRIC into the Google Explorers program, which sold Glass headsets to qualified testers ahead of its 2014 launch.

For average users, Google Glass puts their digital life on a screen right in front of their eye, allowing them to check email and social media, take photos and video, and so on.

For the Navy and Marine Corps, it could mean instant access to manuals and training materials on station. One day, it could allow a commanding officer to get instant access to information about his or her mission in real time.

For example, Steinman said, there is potential with the next generation of aircraft carriers and destroyers to integrate a ship with augmented reality, bringing information gathered from every corner to one tiny screen.

"Where is it going? What were the last five surface contacts? If there's an underway replenishment going on, it can give data to the ... officer of the watch, officer of the deck, the CO, the XO, the command master chief," he said.

But first, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert insisted they take Google Glass to the fleet and ask sailors how they thought it could make their lives easier.

"The resounding answer to the questions that we asked was sailors wanted and needed a better way to teach about maintenance," Steinman said.

So Joshua Kvavle, a research engineer with Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, and his team came up with a suite of smartphone applications to support that.

"You can do a repair wearing Glass, record it, save it to [a] cloud storage [in the future], then put it up on a screen for training," Steinman said.

Similarly, a Marine or sailor wearing Glass can pull up one of those videos when doing an intricate repair.

There is a small problem, though: CRIC has been working with Google Glass, which is about to become obsolete. It doesn't kill the project, Kvavle said, but it means they'll have to pick another headset to keep things going.

"This was not unexpected for us," Steinman said. "In fact we notified people over a year ago that in our assessment, this wasn't going to be as initially successful as Google had hoped."

However, CRIC is linked to a process, not a platform, he added. Kvavle offered alternatives like Vuzix Smart Glasses, Optinvent and the Microsoft HoloLens as other choices.

For now, though, CRIC will finish its research with Google Glass. The next step is to take the headsets to petty officers in San Diego next month, to work more on the maintenance video and training capability.

By the end of this year, Steinman said, the plan is to submit a memo to the CNO about their findings, then see where it goes.

Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.

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