The Army planning to grant and upstart the weapons maker Anduril control of one of its highest-profile and long-troubled projects. That is also known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) pending final Department of Defense (DoD) approval. The founder Palmer Luckey said in a blog posting.
IVAS was originally granted to Microsoft in 2018. They developed the augmented reality headset for the soldiers based on the ruggedized version of HoloLens. The initial budget for the IVAS was set at $21.9 billion.
Anduril will also now take control of the contract. Microsoft is being removed as the prime contractor and not being kicked off the project. The company will now continue to be the cloud provider this statement is supported by Microsoft.
Anduril is now being tasked with oversight of the full production. Microsoft stated the future development of both hardware and software and the delivery timelines. The initial idea is to give the troops a heads-up display with outstanding features like a thermal sensor, Tactical Assault Kit software, and maps.
Anduril’s Lattice software has already been counted to Microsoft’s IVAS headsets. The company announced this in September. Lattice counted the computer vision AI along with the other features that will allow the headset detect, track, and classify objects.
Back in 2022, the DoD’s inspector general published a report stating that IVAS wasn’t actually doing a good enough job serving the people. That means the soldiers who will use the headsets. The report also warned, “Procuring IVAS without attaining user acceptance could result in wasting up to $21.88 billion in taxpayer funds to field a system that soldiers may not want to use, or use as intended.”
Microsoft’s prototyping suffers from all kinds of technical issues. What prototypes need to do, such as seeing the virtual objects, various sources told the Breaking Defense in 2023.
In August, the Army said it was entirely open and pulling Microsoft off as the prime contractor.
Recommended for You:
