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Microsoft wins $22 billion deal making headsets for US Army
Augmented reality headsets could be used for both training and in actual battle
April 7, 2021 By Matt O Brien, The Associated Press
Microsoft won a nearly $22 billion contract to supply U.S. Army combat troops with its augmented reality headsets. Microsoft and the Army separately announced the deal recently.
The technology is based on Microsoft’s HoloLens headsets, which were originally intended for the video game and entertainment industries. Pentagon officials have described the futuristic technology – which the Army calls its Integrated Visual Augmentation System – as a way of boosting soldiers’ awareness of their surroundings and their ability to spot targets and dangers.
Why Microsoft Won The $22 Billion Army Hololens 2 AR Deal forbes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from forbes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Defense Systems Staff
Apr 06, 2021
The Army plans to field more than 120,000 custom, ruggedized versions of Microsoft’s HoloLens headsets designed to project situational awareness information directly onto a soldier’s visor.
The Integrated Visual Augmentation System program looks at the soldier as a weapons system, the Army said. IVAS integrates key capabilities – such as high-resolution night, thermal and soldier-borne sensors as well as radio communications into a single, lightweight wearable device to improve information sharing and decision making for warfighters.
The system has also been fitted with facial recognition and language translation tools as well as rapid target acquisition and identification, performance assessment and biometric applications. It leverages augmented reality capabilities that enable the overlay of map displays, data or simulated images onto a soldier s view of the real environment.
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