US Congress Rejects Further Army HoloLens Orders After Test Failures, Work Begins On New Version - UploadVR

The US Congress rejected further US Army orders of  HoloLens IVAS aft tract tests revealed issues.

The decade-scale Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) programme aims to equip US Army soldiers with AR helmets to heighten situational awareness. IVAS is simply a heavy modified variant of HoloLens 2, much ruggedized and lodging galore much sensors. The tract of presumption was importantly increased from astir 40°x30° to 80°x40°. That’s wider than immoderate different known see-through AR headset connected the market. But tract investigating reportedly revealed “mission-affecting carnal impairments” including headaches, eyestrain and nausea. Previous evaluations recovered reliability issues, with “essential functions” sometimes failing.

The archetypal batch of 5000 headsets is already being delivered, but Bloomberg reports Congress has blocked the adjacent $400 cardinal order of 6900 units aft reviewing the trial results. The existing batch of 5000 volition reportedly beryllium utilized for training.

The US Army has present awarded Microsoft a $125 cardinal declaration for a caller 1.2 mentation with a “a little illustration Heads-Up Display with distributed counterweight for improved idiosyncratic interface and comfort” arsenic good arsenic bundle changes to amended reliability and trim powerfulness draw.

Reported imaginable usage cases for IVAS include:

• overlaying icons connected affable units, objectives, threats, and points of interest
• built-in nighttime imaginativeness & thermal presumption modes
• live picture-in-picture feeds from drones, including the Soldier Borne Sensor (SBS) idiosyncratic drone
• simulated weapons & enemies for grooming exercises
• scanning adjacent radical for precocious temperature
• facial designation for hostage rescue situations

The Army was besides investigating integrations with vehicles, specified arsenic soldiers being capable to see-through the walls of the armored conveyance carrying them, truthful connected dismounting they’ll beryllium situationally aware.

Some Microsoft employees had protested providing exertion for the military, but CEO Satya Nadella responded by saying “We made a principled determination that we’re not going to withhold exertion from institutions that we person elected successful democracies to support the freedoms we enjoy”.

Microsoft besides plans to merchandise a caller mentation of its regular non-militarized HoloLens, though “not yet“. It’s unclear how, if astatine all, that caller headset relates to IVAS 1.2.