Mixed Reality Goggles for Soldiers

A human eye cannot perceive things beyond a certain point. It needs the help of gadgets to see invisible things. With the invention of Virtual Reality (VR), a human eye could interact with the virtual world. Then came Augmented Reality (AR), where a person could see virtual elements floating around in the real world. Now that the virtual elements were added to the real world, humans wanted to interact with the virtual elements in real time. Hence, came the invention of Mixed Reality (MR), which combines both VR and AR for a more immersive experience with the digital elements in the real world.

Microsoft has won a contract from the US Army requiring 120,000 mixed reality headsets which are worth $22 billion over the next 10 years. In military use, this headset is known as Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS). It consists of many sensors, a wide lens and a computer. It also has an internal display to share, produce and enhance the information for the soldier who is wearing it.

The IVAS provides tactical edge on the ground during the war. It has a digital night vision which gives a better field of view of the enemy at night. IVAS can be used for fighting adversaries and acquiring the targets during the day and night. It has a digital thermal low-light night vision capability. It consists of Artificial Intelligence features, such as facial recognition and textual translations in real time.

IVAS provides land navigation during the war to identify various check points. There is no need to move your eyes away from the battle field. IVAS provides synthetic training environments, which can be used to build training scenarios with 3D holographic enemy to train the soldiers who can talk with each other, hide from the enemy, and fight in a virtual scenario. Soldiers and leaders can conduct after-action reviews using 3D holographic images, terrain and playback for rehearsing and training for the real battle. IVAS provides inter soldier wireless connectivity, ability to pass real time data among squads, platoons and company formations. Soldiers can share images of all the objectives of the mission on the battle field in real time and categorize them as finished or pending. IVAS uses soldier borne sensors for planning and rehearsing the objectives of the mission using 3D holographic images in real time.

One of important features of IVAS is the ability to see “through” the closed vehicles. This is done by external cameras used for recording and are shared with the soldier’s headsets. When traveling and dismounting from the vehicle, troops riding inside the armored vehicles will be more aware and have a better sense of their surroundings. As the soldiers patrol the borders on foot and are in enemy zones, they can see recorded video from cameras on the other side of an armored vehicle. The signal needs to remain strong to receive the footage.

Through a lot of soldier’s feedbacks and building more than 28 prototypes over the past couple of years, the IVAS has been improved over time. Waveguide technology has been used to enhance the capability of the soldier on the battle field.

In this digital world, IVAS provides advanced capabilities to soldiers for future war threats or any adversaries. IVAS provides soldiers the ability to move quickly and safely, improves situational awareness of every soldier on the battlefield, provides virtual training battles and improves survivability. It makes a soldier smarter, better informed, more agile and lethal. It will save lives on the battlefield. It is a really exciting invention which has turned into a reality and makes the battlefield safer and more immersive.