AUSTIN, Texas, March 31 (UPI) -- A smartphone-enabled analysis and battle tracking system developed by the Overwatch company of Texas is to undergo field testing by the U.S. Army.
The tests are in support of the Army's Brigade Modernization initiatives, following Overwatch's more than 18 months of support of the U.S. Army's 2nd Brigade, 1st Armor Division of the Brigade Modernization Command.
A goal of the BCM is to evolve Overwatch's SoldierEyes system to address the situational awareness needs of soldiers in full-spectrum operations.
"SoldierEyes is an outstanding example of the next generation of tools available to the individual warfighter," said Mike McCarthy, director of the Army's Operations, Brigade Modernization Command, TRADOC. "The SoldierEyes technology has produced very relevant and open, smartphone-enabled services and applications that may be easily tailored to meet the needs of the Army."
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Overwatch said SoldierEyes is fully operable within government-fielded communications environments, such as 3G/4G cellular and WiFi. In remote areas where reliable connections are non-existent, SoldierEyes devices and systems are able to connect via the new FASTCOM technology co-developed by Overwatch and Textron Systems' AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems division, in partnership with ViaSat Inc.
FASTCOM is a mobile, secure battlefield cellular network that can be hosted on manned and unmanned aircraft, aerostats, masts or ground vehicles.
Overwatch said the benefit of SoldierEyes is two-fold. First, the system provides soldiers with fused information for a more relevant, common operation picture that gives soldiers enhanced situational awareness. Second, the system provides an open architecture environment that can be rapidly and continuously updated and improved through third-party application development and deployment.
SoldierEyes uses cloud architecture designed to operate on existing government servers and to support any Internet Protocol-enabled client, such as smartphones, tablets and personal computers.
