Army develops prototype for 'wired' soldier of tomorrow

April 19, 2000
Web posted at: 4:15 PM EDT (2015 GMT)

By Richard Stenger
CNN Interactive Writer

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (CNN) -- Crawling through a field in hostile territory, a soldier spots an enemy. What does he do? He might fire up his palmtop computer, pinpoint the exact GPS coordinates of the foe, and pipe the information over a satellite phone network back to headquarters.

A U.S. Army battle laboratory in Colorado is working to apply such personal tech breakthroughs to the combat zone. Select troops have already tested prototypes with the lab's Joint Expeditionary Digital Information (JEDI) program.

Besides a rugged Palmtop computer, the JEDI arsenal includes an Iridium-like mobile phone, a lightweight GPS receiver and Viper rangefinder binoculars, which can display the geographic location of targets as far as 4 km (2.5 miles).

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A soldier with the JEDI array can send data to his superiors via satellite almost instantly, said Capt. Chris Eubank with the U.S. Space and Missile Defense Battle Lab in Colorado Springs. Scout teams, foot soldiers and artillery squads could use the JEDI system to send an alert about an enemy or request medical help.

The high-tech equipment will allow commanders to track their troops, help them avoid becoming lost and reduce the risk of friendly fire, Eubank said.

Commanding officers can alert JEDI troops to hostile forces by beaming information from headquarters to the field. An icon would mark the location of the enemy on a map displayed on the palmtop.

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The JEDI components work synergistically to produce, transmit and receive an impressive amount of data. The precision lightweight GPS receiver, called the "plugger," tracks the geographic coordinates of the JEDI soldier. The Viper laser rangefinder binoculars then locate the precise distance and compass direction of a target. That information feeds automatically into the palmtop, which runs an algorithmic calculation to determine the precise grid coordinates of the enemy.

The palmtop is "the brain of the system," Eubank said. It runs Microsoft Windows CE software using a 233 MHz Pentium II processor, packs 32 MB of RAM, and has a touch-active screen.

The mobile phone can automatically dial up, connect to headquarters via a satellite hookup and transmit the necessary data in less than two minutes.

"A businessman driving in a car can download data by using a cell phone as a modem. It's the same thing here, but over a satellite network. You're not limited by line of sight communications," Eubank said.

The prototype system may face a setback with the bankruptcy of Iridium. The satellite network, which forms an integral part of the JEDI system, could go down in June. The battle lab plans to switch over to the Globalstar constellation, but that satellite network doesn't allow data transmission yet. That capability should come in June, but Eubank acknowledges Globalstar may not be ready then.

In battle, the JEDI system could be vulnerable to communications jamming or capture by the enemy. But Eubank thinks future soldiers can prevent the enemy from acquiring the JEDI software.

"If you're compromised, you erase the system, that's easy to do. If worse comes to worse, you could just break it. But because we're just a test, we don't tell them to break our stuff," he said.

With good reason: an outfitted JEDI vest costs almost $30,000.

Crack troops could place JEDI tools under demanding conditions in Fort Polk, Louisiana. The Army and the other military branches plan to test JEDI and other satellite systems and weapons during futuristic war games there in September.

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