Pentagon researchers are taking a project to bring a real-time operational picture to squads in the field into the next phase.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded Lockheed Martin a $10.6 million contract to start work on Phase II of the Squad X Core Technologies program, which is intended to deliver the kind of situational awareness available to command posts to smaller deployed units.
Lockheed was one of nine companies given Phase 1 contracts late last year to begin work on the program. “Our goal is to develop technologies that support a three-dimensional common operating picture leveraging input from integrated mobile sensors, as well as the ability to organically locate and identify friendly forces and threat locations in near real time,” Maj. Christopher Orlowski, DARPA program manager, said at the time.