Terminator Tech. Soldier Vision

Imagine the most terrifying soldier in sci-fi movie history. Did you think of the Arnold's Terminator? The U.S. Government did and that is why the pentagon is looking into turning our soldiers terminators by giving them the similar vision capabilities.

Spencer Ackerman - wired.com

No more will soldiers’ vision be limited to the socket-embedded spheres that God intended. The Pentagon now wants troops to see dangers lurking behind them in real time, and be able to tell if an object a kilometer away is a walking stick or an AK-47.

In a solicitation released today, Darpa, the Pentagon’s far-out research branch, unveiled the Soldier Centric Imaging via Computational Cameras effort, or SCENICC. Imagine a suite of cameras that digitally capture a kilometer-wide, 360-degree sphere, representing the image in 3-D (!) onto a wearable eyepiece.

You’d be able to literally see all around you, including behind yourself, and zooming in at will, creating a “stereoscopic/binocular system, simultaneously providing 10x zoom to both eyes.” And you would do this all hands-free, apparently by barking out or pre-programming a command (the solicitation leaves it up to a designer’s imagination) to adjust focus.

Then comes the Terminator-vision. Darpa wants the eyepiece to include “high-resolution computer-enhanced imagery as well as task-specific non-image data products such as mission data overlays, threat warnings/alerts, targeting assistance, etc.” Target identified: Sarah Connor… The “Full Sphere Awareness” tool will provide soldiers with “muzzle flash detection,” “projectile tracking” and “object recognition/labeling,” basically pointing key information out to them.

And an “integrated weapon sighting” function locks your gun on your target when acquired. That’s far beyond an app mounted on your rifle that keeps track of where your friendlies and enemies are.

read more at wired.com