Eyekon: In-the-Situation Awareness for the Dismounted Warrior

"The goals of an enhanced mobile infantry, a weapons system that leaves the warrior with his whole mind free to handle his weapons and notice what is going on around him, as expressed in Heinlein's timeless Starship Troopers is becoming a reality todaythrough the innovative progress being made by the U.S. Army's 21st Century Land Warrior program. However, the current Land Warrior system does not provide a "heads up" display (HUD) like the capability that avionics provides to fighter pilots. What islacking is a capability that, when a Soldier shoulders the weapon and looks through the aiming sights, he sees objects easily distinguishable as friendly or not, as well as enemy locations along his current heading on a basic map schematic. In other words,what's missing is intuitive situational awareness for the Soldier immersed in the situation while it is happening. Our objective is to develop software components that overlay smart icons, named Eyekon, on the dismounted soldier's individual weapon sight.Eyekon provides objects for the graphical user interface of friendly and enemy positions in the weapon sight when the dismounted Soldier employs the weapon. Eyekon is an intelligent agent-based decision support system hosted on a wearable computer. Theoutput of Eyekon is fed directly to the soldier's display. Display examples are a hands-free device (HFD), weapon-aiming device (installed on existing M16/M4 systems or the future OICW),