Army Probes Industry Ability to Offer Situational Awareness-Enhancing AR
Lt. Gen. Milford Beagle (right), commanding general for the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, Gen. Gary Brito, commanding general for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Lt. Gen. Patrick Matlock, the U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff for G-3/5/7, and Brig. Gen. Katherine Trombley (fourth from right), the deputy commanding general of the Army Reserve at the Combined Arms Center, view an augmented reality demonstration of the Virtual Operations and Rehearsal Tool – eXtended or VORTX at the National Simulation Center’s Combined Arms Center-Training Innovation Facility. Russell Toof/U.S. Army
The potential vendor would have to provide both the augmented reality software and support.
The U.S. Army Contracting Command-Aberdeen Proving Ground is asking for industry partners to comment about their experience with augmented reality, command, control, communicate, coordinate—or ARC4—software and their ability to provide such software and support services, according to a request for information filed on Tuesday.
As noted in the RFI, vendors should have “an in-depth and expert knowledge of the ARC4 software.” The technology would be used to improve situational awareness by, for example, providing an overlay of information via user-worn goggles.
For example, vendors should describe their ability to:
- Design, develop, integrate, test and maintain all ARC4 software needed for its integration into government systems.
- Design, develop, integrate, test and maintain all Intra-Squad Wireless emulator software to simulate systems.
- Produce, integrate, test, debug, deliver, document and maintain software necessary to be developed for the integration of ARC4 software with Army vision systems, and do the same for any software needed to enable the ISW Emulator to support new features, modules, or updates to existing software and fix bugs.
- Create ARC4 software tools and utilities needed to support the integration of such software.
- Manage the configuration of ARC4 software, including creating, updating and maintaining documents and specifications, among other things.
- Develop, maintain and update software development kits for ARC4 software to allow third party vendors to integrate the software more independently into their systems and to add new features to the software.
- Help government designated vendors with ARC4 software in regards to design, development, integration and training.
- Provide technical knowledge of the software and its integration into vision systems.
- Offer engineering field support services “to support the integration of the ARC4 into the Army vision systems to include support of planning, coordination, set-up, execution, data collection and analysis.”
- Provide software engineering and subject matter expert help for the installation, integration, operation and evaluation of ARC4 software applications.
- Train the government as needed for using the software in vision systems.
Responses are due via email to the contracting officer by Feb. 24 at 3pm EST.