After a recent successful test of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), the U.S. Army has finally decided to accept the first batch of the IVAS, which is around 5,000 goggles according to Bloomberg.

Jamal Back, Director of Strategic Communications to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, said that Assistant Secretary Douglas Bush has “cleared the Army to begin accepting” the set of gogles. Previous to this, the delivery was put on hold first so further tests can be conducted to address concerns about the performance of the goggles.

The IVAS is based on the Microsoft Hololens tech and if implemented in the battlefield, will provide significant advantage to the troops on the ground. It is like a Swiss Army knife of goggles as it can show real-time battlefield information such as enemy and friendly locations and navigation information. It also has high-resolution night and thermal vision.  Off the field, it has potential uses for medical purposes and equipment/vehicle maintenance as information can be displayed on the lens to guide Army medics and repair crews when needed.

It was even used to monitor soldiers’ temperatures to detect possible Covid-19 infection.

The U.S. Army delayed the acceptance of the IVAS in October 2021 due to the too wide view of vision which at 80 degrees, the resolution got degraded. Minor reductions were made to adjust the field of view until testers get clearer view when wearing the goggles. The most recent exercise using the IVAS was last month in which the Program Executive Office for Ground Combat Systems hosted a two-day demonstration event at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

IVAS used in an demonstration at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in August 2022 (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Chandler Coats)

In this exercise The IVAS was used with the Stryker armoured vehicles. Cameras were integrated with the Stryker and connected to the IVAS, giving the user a 360 view outside of the vehicle.

The IVAS program is worth is said to be worth US$21 billion for a projected order of 120,000 units including spares a support for a decade. The initial order of 5,000 goggles was placed in March 2021 and it was valued at US$373 million. It is not mentioned how many goggles in this batch will be distributed to units.

Top photo: IVAS used in a training exercise in October 2020 at Fort Pickett (U.S. Army Bridgett Siter)