Set Cammos to Vibrate

I think we can all agree a vibrat­ing cell phone in your pocket means good times. Now imag­ine the same buzzing sen­sa­tion across your entire body, com­mu­ni­cat­ing tac­ti­cal data. A tap here could mean a bad guy approach­ing; a pulse there, some­one more friendly. That’s what the Navy is aim­ing for, in its next line of ‘com­bat attire’.
There’s an old English say­ing that “too many tech­nolo­gies inter­fere with oper­a­tions and reduce the over­all effec­tive­ness of the sol­dier already over­loaded by audio-​​visual cues” — and I think it applies here. Marines and sol­diers are receiv­ing more infor­ma­tion than ever and could soon be in dan­ger of over­load — even before they get the next-​​gen, fully-​​wired cam­mos.
So how to get around the pro­cess­ing jam? Some folks in Florida think the tongue could be the key. The Navy, on the other hand, is plac­ing its bets on hap­tics — the skin’s sense of touch. So the ser­vice is on the look-​​out for:
”(an) unob­tru­sive, real time, bi-​​directional com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem that can be embed­ded in the com­bat attire of the counter-​​terrorism dis­mount warfighter for the cap­ture of indi­vid­ual loca­tion and action infor­ma­tion with sub­se­quent pre­sen­ta­tion to the unit com­man­der and other team mem­bers via the tac­tile modal­ity”.
“If the unit com­man­der has the infor­ma­tion about which team mem­bers are walk­ing, run­ning, stand­ing, prone, kneel­ing, and/​or fir­ing weapons, he will be able to make well informed crit­i­cal deci­sions based on a sig­nif­i­cantly bet­ter under­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion at any given time. Even with the lack of phys­i­o­log­i­cal mon­i­tor­ing, these data could indi­cate poten­tial causal­i­ties (e.g., prone, no move­ment, not fir­ing). Additionally, direc­tion of enemy, ammu­ni­tion deple­tion, and sever­ity of enemy engage­ments could be ascer­tained.“
In other words, it may soon be pos­si­ble for bud­ding Bene Gesserits, with appro­pri­ate train­ing, to receive vol­umes of mate­r­ial via the sen­si­tive parts of the body. Depending on loca­tion, ther­mal and/​or pres­sure switches could trans­mit every com­mand a unit leader could wish for. Exporting the data into exist­ing vir­tual envi­ron­ments would allow exact repli­ca­tions of oper­a­tions to take place — an obvi­ous bonus for train­ing.
Robert Lindeman has been work­ing in the field for the past sev­eral years and has suc­ces­fully tested both a basic “vibro­tac­tile” arm­band “send­ing sim­ple sig­nals to dis­mounted infantry dur­ing live-​​fire exer­cises on an obsta­cle course” and “upper-​​body vibro­tac­tile feed­back sys­tem for train­ing Marines in build­ing clear­ing exer­cises in VR”. The ‘Tactavest’ relays cues via blue­tooth to a cen­tral con­trol­ling ‘TactaBox’ which acti­vates the nec­es­sary stim­uli to ori­ent the user — Tacterrific, you’ll agree.
The vest is an exam­ple of basic direc­tional con­trol, but con­sider a vibro­tac­tile belt for way­point nav­i­ga­tion or a vibro­tac­tile suit for heli­copter pilots to com­bat spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion and you can pre­dict the ben­e­fits for all ser­vices. For exam­ple, exist­ing com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions already include: Balance pros­the­ses, hear­ing aids, med­ical train­ing and gam­ing sys­tems.
Personally, I think my under­pants would pro­vide their own haptic/​olfactory warn­ing to my ‘bat­tle bud­dies’ in a com­bat sit­u­a­tion. So, for now, I’ll pass on hap­tics, thanks all the same.
– Steven Snell

June 1st, 2006 | Gadgets and Gear | 19106 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2006/06/01/set-cammos-to-vibrate/Set+Cammos+to+Vibrate2006-06-01+14%3A52%3A39david_axe You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.