What They Say
The Economist ($) had an article about the way that AR is being used by the military, especially the US Army which has a big project that it calls IVAS (Integrated Visual Augmentation System) and is developing with Microsoft. The Hololens headset has been ruggedised and with a computing and battery ‘puck’ that is worn on the chest. Features include guidance, friendly force identification and facial-recognition to identify ‘persons of interest’.
The article reports that production has begun, with 120K headsets to be deployed this year. The US Marine Corp is also interested and the UK’s Royal Navy is working with BAE systems to allow access information from bridge displays to be shown in other areas of ships.
Limpid Armor of the Ukraine is working on AR for use in tanks and which may be able to replace periscopes with external cameras and sensors. The images can be augmented by video from nearby drones. The firm is supplying systems to the Ukranian army and the UAE as well as an unnamed Asian country.
The article also covered a system from L3Harris of the US which is working on enhanced night vision goggles and can be used for target identification with rifles.
Mojo Vision has received funding from Darpa for its contact lens-based systems, although they are ‘a few years’ away.
What We Think
What would we do without the defence establishment to put money into developing new technologies? (BR)
