Live Operational Data Enhancement for Situational Awareness Through Augmented Reality, part II

ongoing

LODESTAR II deeply integrates new enabling technologies from the fields of Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the soldier system. These new technologies are applied with the purpose of increasing the survivability and effectiveness of the (dismounted) soldier. AI and AR as enabling technologies have already been demonstrated convincingly within previous EDF Research project LODESTAR (grant agreement 101102526); the feasibility of key concepts presented in this proposal have previously been proven. It has been demonstrated how we can leverage and combine these emerging technologies within the soldier system, taking into technical limitations in terms of devices’ size, weight, power-energy sources, and computational processing power as well as the limits of human performance, such as logistic burden impact and limits of soldier’s cognitive capacity. An tentative architecture for integrated soldier systems prepared for integration of AI and AR was established and demonstrated in LODESTAR I. LODESTAR II will integrate findings from LODESTAR I with the latest insights, implement prototypes based on the LODESTAR architecture, which are then tested and evaluated under representative (simulated) operational conditions. The work done in LODESTAR II will be focussed on building the ability and know-how within the consortium to bring future products to market (downstream of the proposed project) in the shortest possible timeframe. The prototype system will include novel hardware and software components (at TRL7) covering every zones of the dismounted soldier system, including a head-mounted AR system, a body-worn AI processor (vision computer) and a highly advanced AR weapon sight. The LODESTAR architecture is fully optimised for through-lifecycle maintanability and upgradeability.