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05 23 2014

Agency demonstrates potential of Google Glass technology to the Italian MoD

The demonstration is part of the EYE CATCH project, a Subject Matter Expertise Service provision activity with the Italian MoD in the area of dismounted soldiers situational awareness enhancement using sensors and ISR technology.  The demo was executed during a workshop organized by the ITA MOD on the application of Agile Software development methodology for military applications.

The Agency team demonstrated how AR glasses, connected to a soldier C2 handheld device, could enhance dismounted soldier situational awareness in case where he's fully engaged in a tactical situation (i.e. hands on his weapon). The demo showed the feasibility of displaying NATO JocWatch selected data and events on a soldier AR glasses, connected to his handheld Android-based device, so to alert him.

A few examples of alerts are a report on an IED event that occurred close to his current position, or on an kinetic event that just happened close to him (i.e. indirect fire against blue forces) and that could put at risk his life and the life of his platoon companions. As a next step, the Agency in coordination with the customer is looking to explore the possibility to connect more data sources to AR glasses (i.e. NIRIS, Blue Force Tracking, Geo, JChat and targeting, as well as soldier medical data to be exchanged with the MEDEVAC team enroute to the soldier).

One of the goals of the Service provision is to support the Italian MoD's agile software development team to develop customized AR apps in an Android environment, which can enhance soldiers situational awareness and the survivability in an hostile environment. The medium term goal would be to support Italy MoD to set-up a Smart Defence project in this area.