EDA, National Defense Magazine Address “Future Soldier” System Trend & Issues

The global trend toward “future soldier” infantry ensembles has swept many countries up in its wake, but issues remain. National Defense Magazine examines some of them in a recent article, and the Steering Board of the European Defence Agency has added a few more. We’ll begin with the EDA Steering Committee, which recently declared that: “The meeting also considered an Agency report on various national initiatives to upgrade the equipment of the individual soldier or “21st century Warrior,” with a particular focus on technology to improve communication, protection and firepower. It found that the programmes had limited commonality and that interoperability – an important factor in multinational operations – remained a major challenge. The Agency was asked to define to what degree these new systems should be interoperable, identify possible areas for cooperation on sub-systems which the programmes have in common, and to work on military requirements for the next generation of systems beyond 2015.” This may help, but interoperability for the various “Infantry-21” next-generation systems certainly doesn’t appear to be on many national agendas at the moment. Meanwhile, National Defense Magazine’s article details some of the systems involved, and notes these key issues: “From small handheld computers and hands-free […]