"New technologies anticipated for the future warfighter"
Sgt. Joe Patterson, an enlisted advisor at Natick’s Operational Forces Interface Group, models Soldier 2025. The uniform acts as a "data bus," transporting data from areas such as the wrist-mounted weapon.
While many people may have been busy preparing for the year 2000, the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center (Natick) has been busy envisioning and inventing technologies that will better protect the warfighter of the year 2025.
Led by Bob O’Brien, a team of Natick scientists and engineers has come together to brainstorm future warfighter systems. The team anticipates that the soldier of the future will don a multifunctional uniform constructed from smart, interactive textiles and other materials.
Such materials will be able to sense and react. For example, the warfighter of 2025’s uniform will be able to sense the warrior’s surroundings and change color to blend in with the environment, or detect and repel chemical agents. The uniform will also act as a “data bus,” passing data and information from, for example, a wrist-mounted weapon to the helmet-mounted display.
"Soldier 2025 takes technologies that we’re working on today one step further," said Robin St. Pere, team member at Strategic Communications.
Advances in nanotechnology will also benefit the soldier of 2025. Nanotechnology is the ability to manipulate materials on an atomic or molecular scale. This technology will improve the strength and durability of textile fibers, which will lead to vast improvements in ballistic protection for the soldier.
As a result of material advances, the soldier of 2025 will wear a helmet that is 40-60 percent lighter for protection against fragmentation threats. In addition to providing protection against shrapnel, it is anticipated that new materials will permit a bulletproof helmet to be developed that is somewhat heavier.
The helmet is expected to protect the soldier’s face and eyes from all threats, including environmental, energy, chemical, biological and ballistic. Nanotechnology is also expected to permit sophisticated capabilities to be included in the headgear subsystem. The subsystem will include a high-resolution display giving warfighters the ability to view tactical/situational data, maps and chemical/biological areas.
The headgear’s integral communication system will make it possible for a warfighter to transmit and receive information from his squad, other squads, his command group, remote sensors or even unmanned aerial vehicles performing reconnaissance.
Soldier 2025 will possess a microclimate conditioning subsystem incorporated into his belt. The mechanism will warm the soldier in cold weather and cool him in warm weather.
The skin temperature sensor is part of the physiological status monitoring system and is located on the soldier’s arm.
The future warfighter will benefit from a physiological status monitoring system, which will keep track of information such as whether the soldier is dehydrated or sleep-deprived. The data would then possibly be transmitted to a medic, unit commander or both.
These are just a few of the ideas proposed at Natick. Some of these concepts may come to fruition as originally envisioned. However, inventing is a process of trial and error, and some products mentioned here may be altered and reconfigured along the way to best serve the soldier of the future.
A vest worn by Soldier 2025 holds rocket rounds while a bayonet remains part of the carrying load
Soldier 2025 will possess a microclimate conditioning subsystem incorporated into his belt.
