The U.S. army is planning to grant upstart weapon maker Anduril control of one of its highest-profile and long-troubled projects, the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), which is pending Department of Defense approval, announced Anduril’s founder, Palmer Luckey.
Initially, Microsoft bagged the order to develop an augmented reality headset for soldiers based on a rugged version of HoloLense. The initial budget was set at $21.9 million.
Now, Anduril will assume control of the contract, and Microsoft will be removed as the prime contractor. However, Microsoft is not being kicked off the project; it will continue to be the cloud provider.
According to reports, Anduril will oversee production, future development of hardware and software, and delivery timelines. The initial idea was to provide troops with a heads-up display with advanced features like a thermal sensor, Tactical Assault Kit software, and Maps.
However, IVAS itself has had a long history of problems.
In 2022, the Department of Defense’s Inspector General issued a report mentioning that IVAS wasn’t doing a good job. The report warned that procuring IVAS without attaining user acceptance could lead to a waste of upto $21.88 billion in taxpayer money.
Later Microsoft’s prototypes suffered from various technical issues, such as detecting virtual objects. In August, the army indicated that it was planning to pull off Microsoft as the prime contractor.
Anduril’s founder Luckey’s blog post on the contract covered a lot of celebratory ground.
He said, “Tactical heads-up displays that turn warfighters into technomancers and pair us with weaponized robotics were one of the products in the original Anduril pitch deck for a reason.”
He also teased that a list of new features is planned for the project, but didn’t name them.
Now it is to be seen if the project under its new contractor Anduril, will retain the entire $22 billion budget. Threats of budget cuts, and canceling the program have been ongoing for years.
