A copy here of my question from NS. Since I figure you guys can provide more and better input. The talk is about a FT helmet and visor Head up display. Here is what I thought is just enough but not too much to be on it. You tell me what you think.

Top left: Currently selected ammo type and count (don't ask, my guns are weird). Also, currently selected fire mode (newer hurts to know your gun is NOT yet on full auto when you are about to storm a room)

Top Right: Sensor display.
A radar like circle with a zoom function and range 4 subdivision lines + outer border. The display can be zoomed in or out to the fallowing settings:
1) Lines every 50m, circle range 250m
2) Lines every 100m, circle range 500m
3) Lines every 150m, circle range 750m
4) Lines every 200m (only really useful for commanders and maybe mortar teams), circle range 1000m

The display shows friendly forces as green dots decreasing friendly fire. It also links to a sound based sniper finder (one of those things that detect where an enemy is firing from) and displays these positions with red dots. And if someone is using his radio to communicate with you it flashes him to make you see exactly who is the one. Also, commanders can designate target locations for their troops (and especially friendly mortar teams) to see. I was also thinking of tying it into a motion tracker Alien style to track any movement in the vicinity, classify it based on the intensity and mark anything big that is moving but is not unidentified as a friendly as a hostile automatically. Also, when enemy fire is detected but is outside of the users field of view small red arrows at the sides of the display would point toward it.

Center: Targeting reticule.
A targeting reticule produced by a targeting computer in the visor interfacing with the weapon. It uses the weapons laser range finder and its own wind and other sensors combined with detailed information about the weapon and rounds them self to calculate exactly where the round will go with your weapon being pointed as it is. This might sound unnecessary with normal bullets, but once you get into rifle grenades, UGL's, RPG's and the myriad of other weapons regular soldiers use, many of whom are designed for indirect fire it suddenly makes sense. And yes, it can calculate for ballistic trajectories. Range to target is also displayed under the reticule.

Other:
The visor would have a zoom function based on a camera implanted into the helmet. It would also have the ability to share visual input and split screens. That way an officer migth look at a target and send his visual to say the platoon mortar team who can than have half their visor displaying exactly where the rounds are impacting. The same could be done with CAS pilots and other friendly forces to ensure maximum coordination.

Maps and other stuff like that would not be linked to the HUD but issued with a military grade IPad like device instead. I figure it would be easier to use (since it has a keypad) and conceal anyway. Plus you can repair and reprogram these without a wireless link (much safer that way) without having to link your self to a cable or take off your armor. All in all its a better setup.


Opinions? Anything else you think I should add? Anything you think I should remove? Also, even thou it is nominally FT I do want it to sound believable. As in, technology advances but physics is still physics.

Given that the real world is not a videogame, I only have a few things to suggest for a HUD, keep things simple, don't have to much distracting information, it is the higher-ups who are supposed to do the heavy thinking, and perhaps the only thing a grunt needs to know is the axis of advance.

And how do you get the data for a minimap?

Youre calling it FT, so technological limitations are really pointless-- its all hand waved anyway.

Sensory overload is your issue.

A good question. I am calling it FT becouse it's not MT. But really think 20 minutes into the future. Think more Firefly and less Star Trek. (Well maybe not Firefly but for example I do have FTL and coilguns but I don't have antimatter and planet destroying death stars. And nuclear bombs are still the premier starship weapons.)

To give a practical example that means I do get a ballistic computer in the helmet but I don't get an AI tracking the soldiers vitals and magically healing injuries.


But yes, sensory overload is an issue. Another issue is cost. There is no need to give each soldier every possible option that he will newer use. That's why I came to you guys.

That is what I was thinking as well. That's why I focused on only the minimum required to improve the soldiers combat awarenes and make up for being in a hermeticly sealed combat suit with a somewhat limited field of vision.

It's a part of my own Powered Armor for 20 minutes into the future project that I will display some time in this year when it's done.

It's not a minimap per se. There is no actual map behind it. It's just a set of concentric circles painted on a semi transparent square in the top right corner of his visor. Imagine something like the HUD on an aircraft windshield.
http://media.defenseindustrydaily.com/imag...F-16_HUD_lg.jpg

The data for the actual dots on the HUD is taken from motion sensors, communication with friendly personnel and vehicle (the whole network centric warfare paradigm) and sound sensors as well.

I plan to outfit the suits with chemical and sound sensors, motion trackers and cameras (standard for communications, IR/UV for night combat).

Im not dismissing your concept, technology as it stands today can a soldier in a HUD a host of useful information, far more information than he can effectively process in the type of snap judgments a Boot is going to need to make on those occasions where he needs to pull the trigger.

So we handwave power density issues.
We handwave emissions on personal radars.

I think you should heap as many sensor options as possible but have the info move up the info chain.

Mapping would be nice, enhanced IFF, night vision, the average grunt doesnt really need a ballistics computer, but range finder is handy for calling down indirect fires, Im also a fan of acoustic triangulation -- the mic in the headset networked with other squad mates-- but this may be an option your not interested in.

Again there is all kinds of info you could gather today. Hell since youve solved power density issues a personal ABC detector isnt out of the question...HUD just starts flashing "ANTIDOTE" across the screen.

Whatever, its really just matter of what you want.

What's hilarious is if you assume tech parity you'll probably be using radar.

And the fourth world rebels will be running around with no armor and an RPG. Good luck finding them.



But seriously, while I hate pointing out videogames ever for this sort of thing, but decent games have an -extremely- uncluttered HUD. Consider that.

I am not saying you are. I was only making sure people understood the idea I had so that they don't go suggesting things that are too wild like the mentioned AI. People on other boards did just that. So when I read "no need to worry about technology" I jumped with a ready made answer to preempt it. Although it probably made no sense given no context.

I was not planing on issuing a personal radar. Even if we handwave away emissions and power issues it still makes the soldier stand out like a flare to anyone with a reciever.

For the enemy locater I was simply thinking of using something like this:
http://defense-update.com/features/2008/no..._detection.html

It listens for the sound of gun shots, recognizes them and alerts the soldier of the direction (and in my case range and type of weapon fired).

That is an intresting idea.

Mapping in what way? If you mean having a map he can look at to navigate I was thinking of issuing an IPad like device that contains maps and stuff like that as well as all their field manuals and current orders. And a self destruct option in case it gets captured.

I thought about this for the armor it self.
The first thought was some sort of IFF like for aircraft. But that won't really work. As far as I understand for aircraft it relies on having an active transmitter responding to anyone hailing it. With infantry it would give any enemy with the same technology a ready made way of revealing my troops in their hiding positions.

So instead, I considered having each infantry men have his suit track his own position via some sort of system (be it GPS or something else) and than send it via an incripted channel to friendlies only, possibly via a laser beam or some other high security system. That way the enemy can't listen in or flash them with a message to scan for them.

But as you can see this is not a field I am very knowledgeable in.

Night vision and possibly IR/UV detection for tracking people in jungles or in other forms of light cover.

What about when he is using indirect fire like rifle grenades or a grenade launcher? Also, what about when he has a recoilless rifle like the RPG-29? I plan to issue each of my infantry platoons with all of the good stuff.

Do you mean like having the sniper finder linked betwen all the squad members and thus having the ability to network it all together to pinpoint enemy fire and friendly forces? Yes, absolutely. Or did you mean something else? If so, do go on.

An ABH detector is a must, but I don't think I can pack all the different antidotes for every gas out there. And there will be many. What I can do is have the power armor (low end but still powered) be fully sealed and filtered so that the gas does not come in. I also plan to have a spray system that releases the smell of roting eggs when gas is detected so that troops know not to take off their helmets.

Also, to touch on the powered armor I am designing to go with this. It is low grade power armor, not the kind 40K space marines use. It won't protect them against HMG rounds or HEFRAG but it will protect them against single shots from that stray full powered rifle. And it will be fully sealed to filter out contaminants. The expense of this thou is that they lose their senses of smell and sound, so these have to be simulated via a microphone and a chemical release system (the later if I feel like adding it). And the strength increase won't be that much, especially once you take out the armors own weight. But it still lets them carry maybe 150% to double the combat load of troops today.


PS. This is rapidly turning to a thread about the general sensor capability of the suits and not just the HUD. And I like that. Thanks.

Uh... what's the need to simulate a landfill?

You do realize that it requires a bit of armor to protect from armor piercing full powered rifle rounds right? And all it takes is one hole to ruin your contained enviroment.

As said, I am considering if to include this. But I would include smell for various other uses like the aforementioned gas warning.

That and the race I am working with are not humans but human like aliens who have a higher emphasis on the sense of smell than we do so it would be useful for them to retain some aspect of it.

Yes, I know. Hence the powered armor to carry all that weight around. I did not do the calcs but it can't be over 30-40kg worth of futuristic composite armor analog materials. Also, I don't intend to armor the user like a Space Marine that shrugs off barages of fire. The armor would probably only be able to sustain a single shots only over anything but the chest and helmet. I don't intend it to make my soldiers invaulnerable. But combined with proper use of cover and tactics it would increase survivability by a large margin. If for nothing else than becouse grazing shots and various forms of shrapnel will get much less dangerous.

as to acoustic triangulation yes basically a "sniper finder" since the doppler effect will allow it to discriminate between out going rounds and incoming it shouldnt be that big a deal.

Also that up link to higher echelons in the info network can tell higher ups when certain aircraft have flown over, when a tank has driven near by(battle rattle is loud as hell) even if the soldier(s) themselves dont engage these vehicles.

As to mapping you can have the input of all units updating in like real time the map info, blocked roads, rubble, enemy movements of appreciable size, precipatation --



As to the HUD itself, I have to agree with Munchie videogames do (sometimes) have uncluttered displays.

as for spoofing the systems with messages -- isnt the HUD already going to be linked into the comms network?

Range finder for indirects would be an always up display-- like a focal point in the view screen that is always showing the range of what the wearer is centered on, if the map info is up to date enough it could even show the altitude of the viewed position, or do a relative computation based on the soldier's location distance to point, and angle of view...hence when he orders the mortar rounds to hit the the third floor of a building he gives very accurate data-- the mortar team will be doing the ballistics calculation. As for when the soldier is using recoiless rifles the range finder will allow for a snap calculation on that since the ranges arent going to be excessive --- ballistics computers are really a matter of long range shooting for grunts.

That's what I thought. How far do you think I could stretch the data acquired thou? Like could I get the type of the weapon and range and not just the position of the shooter?

So you meant passively? As in the data is sent to the unit IFV and that sends it up to platoon command that sends it on to higher levels. And all that being done completely automatically and without input from the soldier?

I like that.

So you mean like this. Soldier runs down an alley and sees a road block. He radios in his IFV that automaticly sends it to all friendlies in range. And now the whole division knows that a road block is there on their IPad maps.

I newer thought of that. But it makes perfect sense given the kind of satellite navigation and mapping we can do now a days. And in FT everyone is either going to have very good maps of his own territory or starships to make maps on the go for him.

Ill probably have to draw the thing out at some point. But the way I see it assembled so far the actual HUD will be completely semitransparent and won't take up more than 10% of the visor.

The difference being that with my idea the unit initiates contact it self. T
o paraphrase: "I call you to tell you where and who I am. And I only do so when I am sure that's you." This as opposed to the aircraft borne method of today that goes: "You flash the general area with a signal to ask who is there. Than I tell you who I am and where I am."

But as said, my knowledge of the field is sketchy at best. So I might very well be wrong.

I was thinking of displaying it right under the targeting reticule. That way the users eyes who are always going to be centered on it when aiming on something will also always be centered on the range finder.

I was thinking of integrating some sort of positioning system to the suits. If nothing else than to track their distance from the IFV. And the IFV would always have very precise maps. If I linked those two together I could get the effect you mentioned. And as a bonus due to the video sharing option the mortar teams can correct their fire by their own eyes on the fly.

The only question is what kind of system to use. GPS is out of the question since it can't be relied upon to survive. Any invader will blow all my satellites out of the sky. And any defender is going to do his best to harass my attempts at orbital recognizance.

Define long range. I expect my troops to be able to engage the enemy at meters just fine.


Also, I don't want to display a map on the HUD since I believe that it would do more harm than good. A soldier does not need a map most of the times. And it would take up his field of view making it more difficult to see things. And no mater what kind of interface for turning it off I include it will always be easier to just look away from a data pad when the enemy suddenly jumps you than to operate it.

This seems more like mid-level PMT than FT, to be honest.

To be technical, it is for a non NS RPG on a completely different board that does not even use the terms MT, PMT or FT. It's just vaguely SF.

mapping in the hud-- there is a word for what I am thinking...and I do agree staring at a map in the HUD would be counter productive...okay one of the things I am thinking of works like this-- its night(or smokey) soldier selects the "mapping option" the HUD then displays in like an overlay known details of terrain to augment the soldier's vision(be it night vision, IR/UV whatever) so I can "see" there is a building 300 meters ahead even if its night and the air is thick with smoke or there is a stand of trees between me and it...see what I am saying, this has an actual name.

info moving up the pipe--
Yes passive, the soldier will obviously report what he hears and sees, but sometimes(likely often) he doesnt know he has heard something because the information isnt relevent to his mission, situation, he is busy killing someone who was trying to kill him, etcetcetc.

GPS
I use my GPS and I contract foreign GPS privately from a state I am not in a military alliance with-- should I go to war with them they know they can cut me off, but why would I? then the system you are using can use GPS+relative positioning to be very very precise, relative to each soldier and the IFV. If I understand the process correctly.

IFF-- since your doing positions of soldiers relative to the IFV then the IFV could in theory serve as both interrogator and responder. So this way you see me and either the HUD shows me as friendly(as our respective IFVs have made nice) or it doesnt and now Im either hostile or unknown with a liklihood of being hostile. Or to use aircraft terms Im not a friendly so Im a boogey possibly a bandit.

Sniper Finder--
It should be able to discriminate between at least caliber sizes I would imagine.

long range
800m and out-- everyone would love their soldiers to all be snipers but in this issue you dont NEED a ballistics computer to calc a shot at 300m, and infantry close with the enemy...its what they do.

On the subject of range finders and ballsitic computers, these are going to be pretty much standard issue devices for most western 40mm GL users in the next 10 years or so and if you can shift the display from the devcie itself to a HUD it will make for much neater implementations.


One neat feature you might want to investiagte is cooperative targeting, Tehre are a couple of DTIC/NDIA expo sldie shows concering canadian work in this feild although thier work is focusing on the capability being implenetated into individual weaposn sights. basically soldier a sees a guy behaving strnagely ina crowd but cna;t get a good look and or clean shot so he highlights the suspect, the network/coms system then passes this info to the rest of his unit and the suspect is then highlighted in the sights of everyone else so they can take a better look if they are positioned to do so.

IIRC the slides were a bit short of detail on how this woudla chived but if you cna find them it might be a starting point for some reading.

Falls: I think what you are looking for is an Enhanced Vision System or Syntehtic Vision system. Both these systems are available for aircraft currently (enhanced just over lays a FLIR feed into the pilots vision and Synthetic over lays terrain mapping info from the aircraft's navigation system).

A decent sniper finder is a decent system for finding where any incoming fire is. It should be able to point you at who's shooting at you very accurately even in a noisey environment, provided you can get the computational cost down.

This. This. Yes. This. Doooo eeeet.

Could anyone provide me with more detail on this than?

The radar will mostly only be useful as a long-range motion-tracker.

Y'know, to make sure those pesky mortar-teams aren't infiltrating your perimeter again, tonight.

Maybe if you're lucky enough to find a radar-transparent building-material (wood), it could find those fidgety insurgents a little faster. And with transponders, probably limit friendly-fire in an "ALL BR OR GTFO" army.

Targeting could just be a bore-sat EO, since by PMT-era there'll be blinding-lasers and perma-flashbangs everywhere.

Ability to bring-up a tacti-map in the corner of the screen = useful.
-Especially if you plan on thinning-out the skirnish-line down to semi-independent 2-man teams armed with nukes, THE MUNCHIE WAY!

I was thinking of giving radar to my tanks and IFV's but not my infantry. And even these would use it sparingly since people (and by that I mean me at least) have thought of issuing radar seeking missiles to most of their aircraft and other delivery methods.

One of the thing I considered including was a light level sensor that automaticly blackens the visor (I have an video display inside it to show the HUD, so this just paints it jet black or at least dark) when a dangerous level of light is detected. Sort of like photo gray but on steroids. That would not stop the enemy from blinding my troops but would save them from permanent damage while their allies murderise the hell out of who ever flashed the light.

And in combination with something like Falls mentioned and a good motion tracker I vager I could even give them limited vision capability to detect stuff around them and do the job of murderising them self.

Define tacti-map.

How about no.

Why not? This for FT correct? If your infantry aren't power armored wearing, jump jet equipped badasses with nuclear weapons release authorized on the squad level, you're doing ti wrong.

Because this is not for fighting NS grade idiots and 40K space marines. End of story.

This said, can anyone offer more information on the imaging thing people mentioned a while back? Also, can anyone offer a good replacement for GPS that does not require satellites.

Wiki article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_vision_system


Pretty much all the big sensor, avionics and even car makers have stuff on the front couple of pages of a search for Enhanced Vision System or Sythnetic Vision System. of course at the moment msot of stuff they have is focuesed on aircraft and UAVs.


There isn;t really a repalcement for GPS as such, there is inertial navigation which with scifi goodies wont suffer the same drift issues it does currently so the need for a beacon based trigulation system would be less. To be honest why not use a series of sat beacons for a hard FT navigation system, if you have sapce craft it shouldn;t be too much of an issue for them to deploy a diposable array of micro sats.

I was making a Starship Troopers reference not a 40k reference.

there is no replacement for GPS.

You can use relative positioning, but its not on its own as good as GPS.

Chances are my enemy will be able to shoot these things down as fast as I can deploy them. That and planetary shields (no, these will not be down but will most likely only have holes punched in it for me to slip forces through) might mess up communications. Worse yet, if I am on the defensive than the enemy has control over the space around my planet. And that means I can't get any satellites out there period. So I need some sort of alternative that is more likely to work even if it works less efficiently.

Looking up what relative positioning is.

Thanks for the link and data.

Alright people. I want to raise this thread from the dead since I am currently working on the actual writeup. So I have new questions.

For one, is there any way of making an IFF system that my enemy can't use against me to detect my forces? It would kind of suck to have the enemy capture a transceiver and flash it all over a city only to have my infantry lying in ambushes cheerfully telling him their position.

If it's FT, just make it an implant automatically set so when he dies it self destructs. If he's wounded it stops receiving and only transmits, so you can find your wounded but the enemy can't use your wounded to find you.

Depending on how you treat your soldiers, you could have a command for an officer to detonate in case of desertion/capture.

Thanks for the suggestions but I am staying away from transhumanism and implants. And more importantly, I need something that I can use not just for infantry but for vehicles and aircraft and all the other things on the battlefield.

Gentlemen (and ladies?), if I could have your atention for a moment.
I came up with an IFF idea I need critiqued. Since its for the same sensor system as the rest of this I shall post it here.


First, to lay out the reason for making it.
IFF is nesecary for FT infantry for many reasons, none the least being that friendly fire is not fun. However, IFF is also a potential weaknes as the enemy can mimic the signals of an IFF transponder thus seting other transponders in the area off and thus revealing my forces. Normal encription won't help here since the enemy does not need to read the signal, just detect a signa, any signal. To parafrase it: IFF works by shouting at someone and having him shout back (in a maner of speaking). And you can shoot a guy who is shouting back at you even if you don't understand a word he is saying.


Hence, I needed a solution for this problem. My answer is to make the system proactive instead of reactive. Instead of having an IFF transmitter that flashes unknown contacts and than have the contact flash back I would have a transmitter that sends out signals to a pre determined target at pre determined intervals. On the level of an infantry squad for example, the target would be the squad IFV. And the target unit would collect the data from multiple transmitters and disseminate it to all of them in a separate time based loop independent from their transmissions. By keeping the two loops independent, I would remove any way for the enemy to trigger said signals. Each transmitter unit would be linked to a relative positioning system to constantly keep track of its position from the target unit. And I would use laser beams as carriers to ensure the messages can't be tracked or intercepted.


The battlefield use of this would be less to provide real time ID to my soldiers for their rifles and more to keep track of my troops on the battlefield to prevent large scale friendly fire incidents with canons, mortars and aircraft. Hence any inaccuracies in the data about the units locations would be mostly meaningless.


Oppinions?

So pretty much they're using the same method used to track everyone's actions as most MMO servers do?

Jamming = lag, and 'Friend' tags running into walls. Upside, you can update whenever, or choose not to update your position/sitrep with command.

Almost a step backwards, to the point of now yelling your position and whatever is going on to the CO on a regular-ish basis, and the CO-unit barking orders on regular intervals and painting himself a target for the team.

Brilliant!

But what happens when the IFV gets fryed?

Solutipn the 3rd: 'Emergency' IFF, to be recieved by all (but is not auto-responded to) as a really quick way to halt (or prevent) friendly-fire. Essentially, it's your CO giving verbal orders to plant ID-panels on the ground right before the strafing-run.

Then get said 'lit' person to fire a magazine of tracers upon some enemy positions, and viola, you just called-in an airstrike.

Coud prob. work that into an airman's SINGARS radio... somehow...

I newer thought of it that way. But yes, that sounds about right I guess.

As said, the issue of lag would not really exist so much since this is designed to act as a general tracker. For example, a squad commander might use it to know if his troops are inside that building or on what floor so that he can coordinate his IFV to fire to support them.

Although I guess IFF is not really a very good term for it. But I just really could not think of any other way to refer to it.

The difference being that presumably since I am using laser communications there would be no way to listen in. And since the signal is not reactive in nature the enemy can't provoke a response either.

The only way someone could detect me using this would be to literally find him self in the path of the beam by sheer luck at the exact moment the system decides to send an update. And that is what I was going for.

The signal target is transfered to the nearest friendly unit on the same organizational level (like say the IFV of another squad in the same platoon). And if the entire platoon has all its vehicles annihilated than I take it IFF and position tracking are the least of their concerns.

You mean sort of how in WW2 troops would lay down flags on the ground near their positions to notify their ground attack aircraft not to go for them? That does sound like a very good plan. But the one flaw I see is that it relies on the user knowing when he needs to update as opposed to having an auto updating system that sends the data to all friendly forces both upward and downward in the chain of command.

In an ideal situation, the squad commander would not even have to call in said air strike. The position of his squad would be tracked by command. And when the microphones on one of the soldiers pick up the sound of say an enemy tank, said sound would be recognized by the computers, sent to the IFV that would than alert command who would automatically send the data to any passing aircraft. All the while, the squad could focus on doing their job content in knowing that the system is doing the rest for them.