Geographically-Enabled Augmented Reality System for Dismounted Soldiers

The current United States Army Land Warrior soldier system incorporates an occluded head-mounted display (HMD) for presenting battlefield information. Soldiers often object to this display because it reduces depth perception by blocking one eye and requires that soldiers mentally integrate overhead map positions to their first-person view of the battlefield. To maintain the soldier's depth perception, Land Warrior will soon transition to a transparent HMD. However, removing the task of mentally integrating overhead map positions remains a large undertaking. Primordial and ITT propose jointly solving this problem by developing Primordial Soldier, a wearable augmented reality system that three-dimensionally embeds visual cues derived from a geographic information system (GIS) upon the soldier's field of view. Within a transparent HMD, soldiers will view tactical geospatial-intelligence, friendly force locations, and battlefield routing directions overlaid directly upon the real world. Additional features of Primordial Soldier will include: multiple modes of operation based upon hardware availability; automated route generation; sophisticated labeling techniques preventing visual overload of the soldier with excessive HMD information; and networking services to expedite sharing geospatial intelligence. The resulting system will be ready for use in the defense sector, with additional applications for law enforcement officers, firefighters, and search and rescue crews.