Revolutionizing Military Operations with Augmented Reality

By Kelly McSweeney

Augmented reality (AR) is in the early stages of new technology. Social media filters are an everyday application of AR, but this technology can be used for countless other purposes, particularly in aerospace and defense.

One afternoon, Northrop Grumman's Sarah Garvis and Wes Harden were casually chatting about the possibilities for the Microsoft HoloLens 2, a mixed reality headset. Garvis, whose background is in management and development in AR and new technologies and Harden, whose work focuses on human interaction with automated systems and new technologies, started researching virtual reality and AR in defense and bouncing ideas off each other. Together, they developed an idea for an AR interface for the military to use to evaluate assets in the field.

“The HoloLens 2 is a new headset that allows for advanced systems in this technology, and few people are investigating its potential application in the battlespace,” said Garvis. “We saw an opportunity to leverage the HoloLens 2’s unique hardware capabilities to manage data flow.”