New Army soldier facility combines tech to sharpen soldier-squad lethality

The Army is now running its Soldier Integration Facility, a kind of crossroads between the high-tech conceptual ways in which scientists go after warfighting problems and the different programs that actually build gear.

Much like a race car

garage, where mechanics might pull down high-engineering ideas to continually tweak cars for test runs and races, those running the SIF want to see it testing ideas in the virtual world and then making physical versions of gear that can be handled.

Those items would then continue in development by the larger programs that get gear built in quantity.

The lab will combine efforts of multiple laboratories that work on soldier performance.

Army Times recently toured the facility and ran through a brief room-clearing exercise in an augmented reality scenario, using early prototype stand-ins for the Integrated Visual Augmentation System.

The IVAS, which is fast approaching its third major prototype version in about a year, is seen as a do-it-all goggle that will provide soldiers night vision, target acquisition, internal and external comms links, and navigation data.

The scenario, in the Squad Immersive Virtual Trainer, allowed an Army Times reporter to experience real-time feedback on shooting, use of other weapons such as hand grenades and an after-action instant replay in which squad members could see exactly who shot what, when and where.

The device, which is still under development, can scan an area, be it the woods outside the barracks, an official training site or a motor pool squad bay. That data is loaded into a laptop and in about 20 to 30 minutes, users can begin dragging and dropping everything from IEDs to enemy soldiers, civilians, barricades, even dogs for a realistic and evolving landscape.

Source: armytimes.com

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