The Army retains approval of the Final Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) Final Office (DOD) and has made Anduril one of the best profile and long-term projects known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS). It plans to allow control of weapon makers to activate, founder Palmer Luckey announced in a blog post Tuesday.
IVAS was originally awarded to Microsoft in 2018 and developed an augmented reality headset for soldiers based on the robust version of Hololens. The initial budget for the IVA was set at $21.9 billion.
Andrill now assumes management of the contract. Microsoft has been removed as a major contractor, but has not been kicked out of the project. Microsoft said the company will continue to be a cloud provider.
Anduril will be tasked with monitoring production, future development of both hardware and software, and schedule delivery, Microsoft said.
The first idea was to give the troops a heads-up display with features like thermal sensors, tactical attack kit software (which provides various types of mission-critical information), and maps.
Anduril’s lattice software had already been added to Microsoft’s IVAS headset, the company announced in September. The grid has added computer vision AI and other features to help headsets detect, track and classify objects.
However, the IVA had a long history of problems.
In 2022, DoD inspectors issued a report that IVAS is not doing enough work to help people using headsets. The report states that “by procuring IVAs without achieving user acceptance, it will make System A that soldiers don’t want to use or use as intended, into the field. “It could be wasted a dollar taxpayer fund.”
Microsoft’s prototypes suffered from technical issues as they tend to do, such as detecting virtual objects, sources said they would defeat the defense in 2023.
In August, the Army vowed to enter a new bidding process where the tech giants try to keep it up, but showed it was open to pulling Microsoft away as a major contractor, and Breaking Defense reported.
Lucky’s blog post at Andrill featured many celebration venues, including a poetic wax and diss to competitors. The blog posts have become so comical at a certain point.
“The tactical head-up display that turns fighter jets into technomancers and pairs them with weaponized robotics was one of the original Andrill pitch deck products for a reason,” he wrote. .
“If Andrill was more than 12 people when Ivas was first spun decades ago (at least the tragic mountain guys didn’t win, our country really got a bullet there I dodged it), and I believe we had a crazy pitch and won this from the start,” he continued.
Tragic Heap is an unkind nickname for Ruckey’s magical leap among the 80 companies fighting to take over the project. Others include Palantir and Kopin, which build the display used in the F-35 helmet, Breaking Defense reported.
Lucky also teased that a full list of new features is planned for the project but did not name them. Instead, he jokingly edited the paragraph.
“Whatever you imagine, even if you imagine, I multiply by 10 and try again. I’m back, and I’ll just start.” He promised.
It remains to be seen whether the project will soon hold the entire $22 billion budget under Andrill, a new major contractor. The threat of cutting funds, or canceling the program altogether, has been ongoing for years.
On Microsoft’s side, Robin Seiler, the company’s mixed reality vice president, wrote in an official statement: IVAS Program. ”
Still, 2025 is already becoming a year of hell for Lucky and Andrill. The company is in talks to raise a round of up to $2.5 billion at a $28 billion valuation. And they announced that the location of MegaFactory, where they will build new weapons, is in Ohio.
Note: This story was updated to clarify that the official transfer is still pending DOD approval, including a Microsoft statement, but the companies have announced changes to the agreement.
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