An immersive environment for rapidly understanding the space domain

KWYN™ SOLAR is an AR/VR/XR training tool. As part of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Hallmark program, KWYN™ SOLAR (Space Operation Visualizations Leveraging Augmented Reality) helps operators quickly develop space domain awareness to maintain critical space assets.

Operators must accurately track assets in space—a task becoming ever more difficult due to the vast number of unpredictable players in space. Although operators need more advanced software tools to anticipate and respond to actions, they often have to rely on outdated processes—and incomplete information—to execute US military operations.

KWYN SOLAR supports the understanding of 3D and 4D space concepts, including satellite structure, fuel consumption, orbital elements, conjunction risks, maneuver prediction and control, and other complex interactions.

Immersive experiences

Augmented (AR), virtual (VR), and mixed-reality (MR) solutions enable custom experiences contextually tailored to individual needs that maximize effectiveness based on deep human factors expertise.

Spatiotemporal exploration

3D visualizations, filtering, and annotation tools enhance spatiotemporal understanding of satellite visibility on Earth, proximity-based conjunction assessments, and potential maneuver options.

User-driven context

Synchronized XR overlays display contextual metadata information based on user-level information access control to provide context for what is observed and to support intuitive understanding of dynamic satellite constellations.

Multidevice integration

Device and web networking enable collaboration, data streaming, watchlist configuration, and rapid content sharing between 2D and 3D mediums.

“Operators can make faster and more confident decisions with KWYN SOLAR because it fuses proven human-computer interaction technologies with next-gen augmented reality displays. It also offers intuitive visualizations and a workflow-centric graphical user interface. With KWYN SOLAR, operators can quickly make sense of outputs from novel AI, machine learning, and other advanced analytic tools developed by both Charles River Analytics and third-party companies.”

Daniel Stouch
Principal Scientist and the Director of Space and Airborne Systems and Principal Investigator on KWYN SOLAR

KWYN SOLAR features

Core space education content, tools, and interaction systems provide the foundation for physics-based models and natural, intuitive interaction.

Underlying 3D models support use by many AR and VR headsets, such as the Magic Leap, Meta Quest, and HTC Vive.

Cross-device, synchronous networking support for education-based use enables distributed, remote learning with real-time interaction and feedback.

Under our PICASSA effort (also part of the Hallmark program), we developed an analytic tool to improve threat detection in space through probabilistic modeling and simulation. KWYN SOLAR allows space operators—who have minimal training in the reference models and reasoning behind PICASSA—to easily understand and incorporate these outputs into their space domain awareness and course-of-action development workflow to arrive at decisions faster and with greater confidence.

This material is based upon work supported by the United States Air Force and DARPA under Contract No. FA8750-17-C-0170. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Air Force and DARPA. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.