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HEADLINE: Market Horizon Broadens for Wearable Computers
BYLINE: By GEORGE I. SEFFERS, Defense News Staff Writer
The market for computers that can be worn by soldiers could grow exponentially through international sales and broadening their use in the U.S. military.
Perhaps the highest-profile use of wearable computers is the U.S. Army's Land Warrior effort to equip soldiers with advanced weapons and communications gear.
Developed by Defense Systems, the El Segundo, Calif., segment of Raytheon Co., Lexington, Mass., Land Warrior provides the dismounted soldier with location readouts from the Global Positioning System, squad-level communications, thermal site imaging, a helmet-mounted display and thermal weapon sight, all of which add to the soldier's store of information about what is happening on the battlefield.
"It is our desire someday to see every soldier with some kind of worn computer system," Col. Philip Hamilton, Land Warrior project manager at Soldier Systems Command, Fort Belvoir, Va., said Feb. 24. "I think Land Warrior will be the program that is going to set the standard for the soldier of the future in DoD and internationally, the program that will serve as a baseline for several derivatives."
For the past couple of years, the Army has been conferring with Germany, Turkey, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Australia to explore equipmentor technology-sharing opportunities with those countries interested in pursuing similar programs, meaning the technology presents enormous opportunities internationally.
"Once you start developing the technologies, the possibilities are endless," said Chris Moyer, business development manager for Motorola Inc., Schaumburg, Ill. Motorola is the prime contractor for the program definition phase of Air Warrior, a related system, and is either involved, or is seeking involvement, in all related programs.
The Army in May and September will demonstrate Land Warrior's capabilities to working groups made up of representatives from the six countries. The first demonstration will be held in Canada, the second in Belgium.
Land Warrior, which will begin evaluations with the 82nd Airborne Division in the spring, has spun off into two related systems: Air Warrior for aviators and Mounted Warrior for soldiers in tanks, armored fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers like Crusader. In addition, spinoffs now are being considered for medics and military police.
Air Warrior is in the risk-definition phase. It is an Army program, but the Navy and Air Force in February signed a memorandum of understanding showing their interest in making it a joint program.
"It's not a joint program yet," Maj. Mike Wills, Army program manager for Air Warrior, said Feb. 24. "I think what the other services are doing is sitting back and seeing where we go with it. The only way they would actually commit funds to the program is if we went off and did something service specific that would benefit them."
Both Air Warrior and Mounted Warrior will use much of the same technology developed for Land Warrior, offering savings opportunities.
A soldier fully equipped with the entire Land Warrior system will be wearing about $ 75,000 worth of equipment, though only between $ 38,000 and $ 43,000 of that includes the equipment covered under the Land Warrior contract. For example, although some equipment, such as the thermal sight and M4 rifle, will be a part of the entire system, they are developed under separate contracts.
The Air Warrior system will be designed to work with 13 types of helicopters, including the RAH-66 Comanche, OH-58D Kiowa Warrior and different versions of the AH-64 Apache and UH-60 Black Hawk. Mounted Warrior, still in concept development, will be used on several systems, including the Crusader self-propelled howitzer, Abrams tank and Bradley fighting vehicle.
The Medic Warrior will be identical to Land Warrior, except it will not have the weapon subsystem and will include software allowing a wounded soldier to send an automatic distress signal with his location to the medics.
In the future, the system could include sensors, allowing medics to hear and identify the relatively high-frequency sound of bullets or shrapnel striking the soldier, and then detect movement or vital signs so medics are not killed or wounded trying to reach already dead soldiers.
Other future technological innovations for wearable computers, according to several experts, include thinly layered electronic components or batteries sewn into clothing, and systems that run off power generated by a soldier's movement -- boots that generate power while the soldier is marching, for example.
In addition, the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Arlington, Va., and Boeing Co., Seattle, are developing a new version of the Maintenance and Repair Support System, known as DataRover, destined to be evaluated by special operations forces around the end of March.
First developed to provide easy access to maintenance manuals and to help mechanics order parts, DataRover has evolved into a battlefield information system to supply maps, friendly and enemy locations, and "all the information needed for small unit operations," an industry source said Feb. 17.
It also grants communications capabilities with the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System. DataRover is expected to cost less than $ 10,000 per unit and also is being marketed to the Navy, the industry source said.
Furthermore, MCI Communications Corp., based here, demonstrated Jan. 15 the Navy can use satellite links to communicate from ship to shore with computers worn on sailors' belts. The demonstration simulated transferring information from Crystal City, an office complex in Arlington, Va., to a computer system worn on the belt of a sailor in San Diego.
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