Is HoloLens Going to the Battlefield?

At the end of this March, Microsoft signed a large contract with the military, providing 120 thousand HoloLens to augment mixed reality head devices. The contract period is ten years, and the amount is more than 20 billion dollars.

Actually, Microsoft has been cooperating with the military since 2018, designing and prototyping HoloLens for military use. Now, they will turn to quantity production finally.

What functions do the HoloLens designed for the military have?

1. First of all, their background is Microsoft Azure Cloud Platform. In 2019, Azure beat Amazon and Oracle, making it win the trust of the military and successfully sign the contract.

2. Secondly, HoloLens is equipped with a series of external sensors in order to collect information and communicate with HoloLens AR devices.

3. What’s more, the special functions include automatic identification of friendly and enemy forces, thermal imagery and night-vision.

The general usage scene is that soldiers can hide in armored vehicles with HoloLens helmets, putting various sensors outside the cars such as hanging on unmanned aerial vehicles, installing on robots, and tying to the bicycles of local residents in other countries and letting them ride forward.

Soldiers in the car can observe the situation on the battlefield around them, only by rotating their own view. In this way, even if there is potential danger, it just causes the loss of some UAVs, robots and bicycles.

Generally speaking, Boeing and Raytheon are Pentagon’s exclusive partners, and military projects usually last for years from requirements to implementation. But this time, Microsoft says that products will be delivered to soldiers within 28 months. It is hoped that this weapon can escort liberty and democracy and contribute to world peace.