land warrior

Land Warrior is a United States Army program that uses a combination of commercial, off-the-shelf technology and current-issue military gear and equipment designed to:

Integrate small arms with high-tech equipment
Provide communications and command and control at the infantry soldier level
Look at the individual infantry soldier as a complete unit rather than as a segment of a larger force

While technology has always been a focus of the United States military, very little of it has actually been adopted by the infantry soldier. With growing concerns of urban warfare and dismounted infantry actions, the US Army recognizes the need for individual infantrymen to be better equipped, better informed, and better protected in the 21st century battlefield. The Land Warrior program maximizes existing technologies to correct most infantry soldier limitations in the short term. The SI (Stryker Interoperable) version of the system has completed US Army testing as of November 2004. It has so far not yet entered full service pending changes; but field is planned as early as fall 2005.

The Land Warrior system

Land Warrior has three priority objectives:

Improving the lethality of an individual soldier
Increasing the survivability of a soldier
Providing full command, communications, and control to a soldier

Land Warrior has seven main subsystems:

Weapon
Integrated helmet assembly
Protective clothing and equipment
Computer
Navigation
Radio
Software system

Weapon

The original system is built around the M16 rifle or M4 carbine, both with modular rail mounts to allow customization as needed for each mission. It includes the weapon itself, plus components such as a daylight video sight, thermal weapons sight and rangefinder/compass. The LRF/DC provides range and direction information, while the cameras provide a video feed and Thermographic capabilities, plus allowing a soldier to shoot around corners or behind cover without actually exposing himself to enemy fire.

Helmet

The Helmet Subsystem (HSS) combines a lightweight advanced helmet with a computer and OLED display that provides various information from digital maps and troop locations down to his weapon-mounted video camera. This is what allows the soldier to see (and fire) around corners. The HSS also incoporates a microphone as well as a headset.

Armor and protection

The Interceptor Body Armor system and Modular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment (MOLLE) load-bearing system currently in service with the US Army and Marines today are partially a result of the Land Warrior programme.

Computer

The Computer Subsystem (CSS) provides the processing power and storage capacity for the system. The CSS is based around an ARM XScale processor. The CSS connects to each one of the LRUs (Line-replaceable_unit) as well as to the batteries.

Navigation

The Navigation Subsystem (NSS) provides positional information, it integrates a GPS receiver and a Dead Reckoning Module (DRM) that maintains accurate location when GPS signal unavailable.

Radio

The Combat-net_radio Subsystem (CNRS) provides communications capabilities for the Land Warrior. The CNRS is based on EPLRS.

Software

Land Warrior's software system is powered by a variant of the Linux operating system and has a modular, open architecture for further improvement. Reliability in recent testing at Fort Benning has been extremely high.

Future developments

The Land Warrior program may play a huge part in Urban warfare situations in the future. Currently, the system has finished its first phase of testing, but limitations keep it from being adopted by soldiers in the field. Other elements may influence future Land Warrior development, such as the eventual adoption of new weapons systems such as the XM8 Carbine and XM-29 OICW, as well as new technologies from both military and civilian firms that may or may not be included.