tech
Inside Anduril and Meta’s quest to make smart glasses for warfare
It’s been a year since the duo entered the US Army’s troubled augmented-reality contest. Here’s what it looks like so far.
TL;DR
- Anduril and Meta are developing augmented-reality headsets for military use, enabling features like drone strike control via eye-tracking and voice commands.
- The goal is to optimize soldiers as 'human weapons systems' by enabling seamless information sharing between soldiers and drones.
- Two projects are underway: the Army's Soldier Born Mission Command (SBMC) and Anduril's self-funded EagleEye headset.
- These systems will overlay information such as maps, drone locations, and AI-identified targets onto a soldier's view.
- Large language models (LLMs) like Google's Gemini and Meta's Llama will translate soldier speech into commands, integrated with Anduril's Lattice software.
- The prototypes are years away from production, with the Army's SBMC not expected until 2028 at the earliest.
- Key challenges include soldier acceptance due to potential information overload, the reliability of AI in combat scenarios, and hardware durability.
- Other defense-tech companies like Rivet and Elbit are also developing similar smart glasses for the military.
- The technology relies on new supply chains avoiding Chinese companies, and Meta is supplying components like displays and waveguides.
- Future versions will need to operate in harsh environments without constant 5G connectivity, requiring local processing power.