Yet Another Twist in the US Army’s Beleaguered IVAS Program

Good intentions. Such was the case more than ten years ago when the US Army envisioned the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program as a major effort to equip its operators with a comprehensive, body-worn system that integrates advanced augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). The IVAS package is still expected to supply soldiers enhanced capabilities for operations and, as important, training – allowing the ground operators to gain beyond line-of-sight perception capabilities, increasing all around combat effectiveness in the multi-domain battlespace. With a price tag of $22 billion and other attention-getting red-flags flying over the program, an intriguing new development should have the attention of the Army customer and other program stakeholders.

Late yesterday Microsoft Corp. and Anduril Industries announced an expanded partnership to drive the next phase of the IVAS program.

Under this industrial collaboration, approved by neither the Army nor US DoD, Anduril will assume oversight of production, future development of hardware and software, and delivery timelines. Microsoft Azure would be established as Anduril’s preferred hyperscale cloud for all workloads related to IVAS and Anduril AI technologies.

The press release provided two outcomes from the industry pairing that may be hard for the Army customer to walk away from – “production at scale and at lower unit cost.”

Adding a bit more intrigue to this industry-generated development, the land service is concurrently gearing up for a new competition and even meeting with companies to answer questions about an IVAS Next competition and possible requirements.

Efforts to gain US Army insights after normal working hours on the development were unsuccessful.

MS&T has commented on US Army’s efforts to field the IVAS program.

We’ll continue to follow efforts to right IVAS and perhaps even the movement to an IVAS Next phase.