Data and power hub can help dismounted troops stay connected
NewsMay 10, 2023
Flavia Camargos Pereira
Military Embedded Systems
SOF Week 2023 – TAMPA, Fla. Designed to provide power and integration for dismounted troops – and joining the solutions for the U.S. Army Nett Warrior (NW) program -- Elbit Systems of America (Fort Worth, Texas) is showing its next-generation hub (NGH) at the SOF Week exhibition.
This small-form-factor,wearable rugged USB solution can link and supply integrated data and power distribution to soldiers’ various wearable systems and technologies.
John Ennis, regional account manager for Elbit America, explains how the hub works: "You can actually have power and radios connected to an end user device. As a hardwired system, it also allows for using different capabilities, different radios, and different batteries."
On May 5, Elbit Systems of America announced that the Army had awarded a five-year fixed-price indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract to produce 33,000 of the hubs for dismounted soldiers. All ordered production units are contracted for delivery by November 2024; work on the hubs will be done at the company’s Fort Worth, Texas facility.
Elbit also supplies the Army with its Enhanced Night Vision Goggle–Binocular (Envg-B), another part of the NW equipment portfolio. Company information describes the Envg-B as enabling the use of AR [augmented reality] through the army's NW platform and is capable of passive target detection through wireless transmission. The Envg-B, says the company, gives the user improved depth perception and rapid target acquisition whether used by soldiers in close combat, combat support, or combat service support operations. The goggles also enable dismounted troops to operate in day and night conditions, including low-, high-, and no-light scenarios, as well as in environments with obscurants like fog or smoke, and in extreme weather.
Conducted by the PEO Soldier unit, the NW effort aims to provide situational awareness to dismounted leaders, while keeping them connected to Brigade Combat Teams with computer processing, data storage, user display, and navigation, thereby enabling faster, more accurate decisions at the tactical level. NW leverages a cross-platform approach which includes Android, Windows, Linux, and HTML; it uses its own applications and Tactical Assault Kit software system, which is a map-based, situational-awareness application.
