Situational Awareness
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Estonian-Croatian start-up Vegvisir has completed the first field tests of its Mixed Reality Situational Awareness System, a technology which provides armored vehicle personnel with see-through-the-wall capability.
The company is showcasing the solution at the IDEX 2023 exhibition in Abu Dhabi, 20-24 February, where it is integrated onto the Milrem Robotics Type-X RCV presented at the EDGE Group PJSC stand.
The system consists of vehicle-mounted cameras and a fully immersive headset with ultra-low latency to provide an unobstructed field of view, with the opportunity to add supplementary data overlays. This gives vehicle personnel a 360-degree overview of what is happening in the immediate surroundings of the vehicle, thus enabling users to better orientate and make more effective decisions on the battlefield.
According to Vegvisir CEO Ingvar Pärnamäe, field tests with the 1st Infantry Brigade Scouts Battalion of the Estonian Defence Forces garnered positive feedback, with users confirming that it provides a better view compared to periscopes.
“Over the course of three days of testing, our solution was put into practice on the Patria Sisu XA-188 6×6 armored personnel carrier and the CV-9035 Infantry Fighting Vehicle,” Pärnamäe explained. “Test driving was conducted at speeds of 40-60 km/h on different landscapes – an old airfield, gravel roads and off-road. We gained a lot of valuable feedback, as well as reassurance that we’ve created a much-needed solution.”
“We’ve also met with representatives of the defense forces and ministries in different countries and there is a lot of interest in Vegvisir,” Pärnamäe added. “We plan to release the first version of the finished product and immediately secure our first sales as early as this autumn.”
The first field tests also proved that while wearing the Virtual Reality (VR) goggles, crew members who normally suffer from motion sickness inside enclosed spaces like armored vehicles are able to endure longer rides without discomfort.
Further tests will be carried out over the coming months to evaluate Vegvisir’s performance on different armored vehicles and obtain feedback from end-users. The company aims to make the system compatible with most vehicle types and technologies used on its target markets.
The company has launched a third round of funding to support the development of the solution.
“In the second round of funding we engaged investors from five European countries,” Pärnamäe said. “As a result of higher than expected interest in the solution, we raised even more funds than we had originally planned. This time, we have a much more ambitious goal: to raise a total of €2 million in investments, most of which has already been covered.”
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