The United States Army has offered reassurances its Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) project is still scheduled to deploy in 2022, the Army Times reported on Friday.
The Army’s IVAS project allows soldiers enhanced mixed reality (MR) vision in combat to detect targets, receive full topographical maps with waypoints, communicate with bases or other soldiers, offer weapons sight pairing, and receive workflow instructions while in missions, among many other features.
The news comes after the Army’s Program Executive Officer-Soldier initially expected to deploy the devices across staff and personnel by early 2022, but faced challenges due to the problems with heads up displays (HUDs) delivering inconsistent data, as well as moisture concerns while in field testing.
Oct. 27, 2020: Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division used the latest prototype of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) during a training exercise at Fort Pickett, VA. (US Army photo, Bridgett Siter) #ivas #army #usarmy pic.twitter.com/LhupZPWT56
— Defense Imagery (@Defense_Imagery) December 24, 2021
The US Army has delayed fielding the device to late 2022 after a careful reevaluation of the headsets, reports found in recent months.
Microsoft inked the contract with the military branch, valued at $21.88 billion, for 120,000 IVAS headsets based on architecture from the HoloLens 2.
David Patterson, PEO Soldier Director of Public Affairs, said in October the Army had decided to delay its fielding date to later next year, adding it was “fully committed” to its work with Microsoft.
He said at the time,
“The Army intends to continue developing and fielding this revolutionary, first-of-its-kind technology in FY22.”
The devices had been initially subject to 80,000 hours of field testing to test their combat readiness and set for deployment in September this year, but following the setbacks, was shelved to tackle the concerns.
The Army Futures Command and Project Manager IVAS also trialled the devices for Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters ahead of the initial September deployment date.
