WASHINGTON – The U.S. Army has paused the acquisition of advanced augmented reality headsets for its troops, a program it had heavily publicized in recent years. The Drive reports. Continue reading original article
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
28 Oct. 2021 -- This revelation comes less than a year after the service announced it had awarded Microsoft a contract potentially worth close to $22 billion to produce tens of thousands of these Integrated Visual Augmentation Systems (IVAS) in the coming years.
The order to stop work on the IVAS goggles reportedly came from the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, which is figuring out what is the appropriate timeline and where is the technology. Exactly what issue or issues led to this pause is unclear.
There have been some questions about the maturity of the technology behind IVAS. Questions also concern the conformal batteries that soldiers need to carry in their gear to power the IVAS headsets. IVAS was to provide information such as waypoints and other navigation symbology, as well as night vision.
John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics
