Soldier involvement driving development of IVAS headset system

Nov. 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. Army is preparing its augmented reality headset for 2021 rollout with its latest "soldier touchpoint" for feedback, the third development milestone, having just been completed.

Soldiers of the U.S. Marines and the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army participated in field tests and demonstrations of the next-generation Integrated Visual Augmentation System in late October at Fort Pickett, Va., the Army announced on Thursday.

It was the third of four scheduled "soldier touchpoint" events in a process of involving Army personnel at each stage of development of IVAS.

"The team employs a Soldier Centered Design methodology that involves Soldiers at every step of the process, from design to development, thereby reducing the traditional 10-year acquisitions timeline to roughly 28 months and eliminating the historical probability of fielding a system Soldiers reject," an Army statement explained.

"Soldier Centered Design means IVAS is designed and built by the Soldiers who give the constructive, candid feedback developers use to turn over new prototypes and upgrade systems constantly," officials said.

The headset under development offers a digital display to access information without taking eyes off the battlefield, thermal and low-light sensors, rapid target acquisition, and upgraded target identification.

It includes a "fight-rehearse-train" system using augmented reality, making the system endlessly applicable for training and rehearsing operations.

Events at Fort Pickett included land navigation, live fire, mission planning, rapid target acquisition, trench clearing, and after-action review using augmented reality, the Army said.

The device, in development for two years, is based on the Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality business headset, but with significant enhancements for battlefield and weather conditions. October's touchpoint meeting offered a sturdier and more rugged device for test purposes.

By the end of the October event, over 40,000 hours of data and soldier feedback was collected.

"If we want to develop systems at the speed of relevance, and systems that our Soldier want to use, this is the way we have to do it," commented Brig. Gen. Tony Potts, commander of Program Executive Office Army, the Army's equipment field testing agency.

"We have learned so much through Soldier Centered Design. Our real desire is to let soldiers design it, and then our engineers build what they design. It's about listening to our soldiers," Potts said.