Posted : Saturday Oct 30, 2010
A battalion of infantrymen at Fort Riley, Kan., is the first unit to test cutting-edge prototypes of the Army’s futuristic wearable computer system, Nett Warrior, designed to boost battlefield awareness and prevent fratricide.
Tests of the system, which shows friends and known enemies on a dynamic map displayed on a helmet-mounted screen, will help the Army discern which prototypes it wants and how the technology will affect small-unit missions, said Col. Wil Riggins, the program manager for Soldier Warrior.
“One thing we found was, this is not just something you hang on a soldier and say, ‘Go ahead and fight,’ because it truly changes the basic methodology of how you fight, how you command and control and how you share information,” Riggins said.
A follow-on to the Land Warrior program, whose deployment was canceled in 2007, the lighter, 5-pound Nett Warrior includes a faster laptop processor and more memory for maps, imagery and graphics. Its battery runs about 24 hours on a four-hour charge.