DARPA and Barone Consulting work to develop state-of-the-art information superiority and tactical augmented reality systems to elite soldiers in the field.
Washington, DC (September 21, 2010) – The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), through the Information Innovation Office (I2O), has awarded Washington, DC based Barone Consulting a $518 thousand task order contract for the Urban Leader Tactical Response, Awareness and Visualization (ULTRA-Vis) Phase 2 Program, systems engineering and technical assistance (SETA) support effort.
“ULTRA-Vis is the first true Augmented Reality system for ground soldiers. By developing state-of-the-art holographic see-through displays and computer vision aided infrastructure free head tracking, the information superiority available to fighter pilots with heads-up-displays will now be available to our elite ground forces,” said Kevin Barone, President and CEO of Barone Consulting. “With ULTRA-Vis we are pushing the envelope on a series of technologies which will have far reaching impacts in both military as well as civilian products.”The ULTRA-Vis program has developed a prototype tactical augmented reality system for use by soldiers in the field. The system overlays full-color graphical iconography onto the local scene observed by the soldier. To enable this capability, the program developed and integrated a light-weight, low-power holographic see-through display with a vision-enabled position and orientation tracking system. Using the ULTRA-Vis system, a soldier can visualize the location of other forces, vehicles, hazards, and aircraft in the local environment even when these are not visible to the soldier. Additionally, the system can be used to communicate tactically significant (local) information directly to the soldier including imagery, navigation routes, and alerts.
Barone Consulting will provide subject matter experts responsible for overseeing the technical development of both prototype holographic displays and state of the art computer vision algorithms to enhance GPS and inertial sensor positional information. Barone Consulting will coordinate the Phase 2 final testing and evaluation activity and have responsibility for determining the performance and computer algorithms to be advanced to Phase 3. The ULTRA-Vis Phase 2 performers have been selected as SRI International – Sarnoff Labs (Princeton, NJ), Applied Research Associates (Raleigh NC), and BAE Systems (Rochester UK).
SETA support for the ULTRA-Vis program was awarded under a task order to Booz Allen Hamilton’s DARPA/I2O contract vehicle. Work will be completed onsite at DARPA’s headquarters in Arlington, VA, over a period of 18-24 months.
Founded in 2009, Barone Consulting provides system engineering and technical assistance services to the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. They provide a cadre of elite subject matter experts to the government in support of game-changing, cutting edge technologies that help performers bridge the “valley of death” between R&D and fielded tactically relevant products. To find out more, please visit www.baronedc.com.