Helmet - mounted showing are priceless on the battlefield . And expensive : The proto - Google Glass headset , for example , is perfectly utile for the average soldier , but right smart too pricey to be practical . That ’s why folks at DARPA are freaking out about the head up display that researchers hack together for a few hundred long horse .
Let ’s get one thing straight : This is hardly the new F-35 helmet — that insanely overpriced fighter aircraft super C ’s Gen III Helmet Mounted - Display System(HMDS ) that shows the pilot all of the essential information needed to mosh through the sound barrier and launch missiles at enemy aircraft .
It ’s also so modern , it effectively turn the intact plane into glass by using a serial of infrared cameras mounted on the Kingston-upon Hull to activate the archetype to “ attend through ” the airframe .
The whole specify up also cost about $ 400,000 . That ’s what makes DARPA ’s garage - build up version so interesting .
A team of young railroad engineer build up the whole apparatus at a price that ’s probably less than the damage of the chin shoulder strap monetary value on the F-35 HMDS . I prove a hacked - together prototype of the machine at a late DARPA demonstration twenty-four hour period in rural Virginia . It does n’t exactly look like a Star Wars prop , but that ’s part of the pointedness . It ’s built to be useful , and it is . base on what I learned about the childlike feature set , it actually sounds like it could deliver soldiers go .
The new helmet - mounted presentation system is designed for infantry soldiers , not scrapper pilots . However , the target to optimize care stay the same . If you ’re top a patrol into enemy territory , there are a million thing to vex about . You ’re the one tasked with finding the safest , most efficient route to your destination . You ’re the soldier who want to identify any insurgents who may happen to span your path . You ’re the first descent of defence if you take the air into a firing fight .
The DARPA equipment focuses on these key use case . All three of the program features I ascertain at the demonstration day center on piloting and scourge detection . The entire system is built within DARPA ’s TransApp ecosystem , the same challenging software program initiativethat powers thousands of soldier ’ smartphones on the battlefield .
One horizon through the helmet - mounted showing is a simple-minded planet view of the terrain , the delegation plan , and the soldier ’s perspective . Another related to view , shown in simplified form below , provide data more directly related to the soldiers . Note the marker for a known IED . These feature are all base on the Maps app developed by TransApp as a way not only for soldier to interchange the World War II era methods of chart out point on newspaper with protractors . It ’s honestly not much different than the navigation feature on Google Glass . The display also detects the soldier ’s question movements so that it always shows the relevant orientation .
The third perspective is perhaps the most interesting , as it plug into the military ’s orotund database of get it on insurgent and civilians . ( One other applications programme of this informationis an app call WhoDatwhich is kind of like a collection of baseball cards made up of locals , their affiliations , and their stage of aggression . ) This view will activate the soldier to riffle through visibility picture of known locals , help to identify who ’s a threat and who ’s not .
While it ’s easy to pull compare between this cheap and easy helmet - mount display and the not - so - trashy and not - so - wanton Google Glass engineering , the invention is much more useful . The display can flip up and down so that the soldier wearing it can enjoy an unobstructed prospect whenever he or she wants . As such , the display itself is opaque and lacks the augmented - world force of some heads up displays .
All that sound out ! This very eminent tech and radical useful gimmick costs about the same as a good smartphone — not the damage of a fancy house . That mean that more soldiers could take advantage use of the potentially lifesaving engineering which , let ’s be honest , is inevitably more important than making killing light .
image by Adam Clark Estes / DARPA
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