It seems that things are not going as expected for Microsoft and its viewers project HoloLens IVAS (Integrated Visual Augmentation System), the so-called combat glasses with Augmented reality for the United States Army. This viewer that the United States Army had ordered from Microsoft consisted of nail HoloLens integrated in a combat helmet.
Despite having made an initial order of 10,000 unitsThe congress has stopped another order of 6,900 glasses worth of $400 million for the current fiscal year. Instead, the army will only receive 5,000 IVAS viewers con training purposes while Microsoft develops an improved version.
The US military is not convinced by HoloLens IVAS
The main reason are the significant technical failures found in the versions 1.0 and 1.1 of Augmented Reality viewers. According to military reports, the soldiers suffered from headachesdiscomfort in the eyes and nausea during tests that lasted less than three hours.
In addition, in the past, while the tests were being carried out, an internal report by the soldiers indicated that with this type of visor would be easily detectable as the screen lights up giving away his combat position.
$40 million to improve the HoloLens IVAS project
instead of spending $400 million in sending more current VATS glasses, legislators have allowed the spending of $40 million to develop an improved version. In addition, $125 million had already been allocated by the end of December 2022 to continue improving it.
As far as is known, the contract requires Microsoft to make improvements to the problems identified by the soldiers so that this new version 1.2 will offer a new form factora “low profile heads up display” and greater ergonomics.
They will also try to have a better distributed weight and one new interface user interface to make it more friendly to soldiers. Also, it is expected to work more exact y consume less energy.
Despite the problems, the army keep trusting Microsoft and his Augmented Reality combat goggles project. Although the project has been presenting difficulties since 2018, it is expected to offer US soldiers “audiovisual superpowers” like in video games.
Thanks to this device the soldiers have information in real time from the command post printed on the same screen or have access to external cameras of an armored vehicle and see what is happening outside at all times before leaving.
Microsoft could deliver 120,000 glasses for a value of $22 billion to the US military for the next few ten years. For that, he must improve the complex augmented reality technology and refine it to eliminate all possible errors detected.