To succeed in their missions, military units must have a robust, multi-faceted picture of their operational environments, including the location, nature and activity of both threats and allied forces around them. Technology is making this kind of rich, real-time situational awareness increasingly available to airborne and other vehicle-assigned forces, along with a capacity to deploy precision armaments more safely, quickly and effectively. Dismounted infantry squads, however, have so far been unable to take full advantage of some of these highly effective capabilities because many of the technologies underlying them are too heavy and cumbersome for individual Soldiers and Marines to carry or too difficult to use under demanding field conditions.
To address this application lag, DARPA’s Squad X Core Technologies (SXCT) program aims to develop novel technologies that could be integrated into user-friendly systems that would extend squad awareness and engagement capabilities without imposing physical and cognitive burdens. The program, whose overarching goal is to ensure that Soldiers and Marines maintain uncontested tactical superiority over potential adversaries, recently awarded Phase 1 contracts to nine organizations.
“Our goal is to develop technologies that support a three-dimensional common operating picture leveraging input from integrated mobile sensors, as well as the ability to organically locate and identify friendly forces and threat locations in near real time,” said Maj. Christopher Orlowski, DARPA program manager. “The Phase 1 performers for SXCT have proposed a variety of technologies that, in the future, could provide unprecedented awareness, adaptability and flexibility to dismounted Soldiers and Marines and enable squad members to more intuitively understand and control their complex mission environments.”
DARPA has awarded Phase 1 contracts for SXCT to the following organizations:
SXCT is pursuing research in the following four technical areas:
The U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps have expressed interest in future SXCT capabilities.
# # #
Media with inquiries should contact DARPA Public Affairs at outreach@darpa.mil
Associated images posted on www.darpa.mil and video posted at www.youtube.com/darpatv may be reused according to the terms of the DARPA User Agreement, available here: http://www.darpa.mil/policy/usage-policy.
Tweet @darpa
You are now leaving the DARPA.mil website that is under the control and management of DARPA. The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by DARPA of non-U.S. Government sites or the information, products, or services contained therein. Although DARPA may or may not use these sites as additional distribution channels for Department of Defense information, it does not exercise editorial control over all of the information that you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this website.
After reading this message, click to continue immediately.
Go Back