Teledyne FLIR, a subsidiary of Thousand Oaks, California-based Teledyne Technologies Inc. (NYSE: TDY), announced it won a military contract worth up to $15.7 million to develop AR technologies capable of detecting chemical, biological and other types of threats in real-time.
The company's work on the project, which is being funded by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Digital Battlespace Management office, will be spearheaded by the company's Pittsburgh office, a location that counts 18 workers among its ranks and is led by Jeremy Walker. These efforts will also be supported by the Teledyne FLIR office in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as well as by several small business subcontractors.
Following the contract award, Teledyne FLIR is now tasked with researching and developing new technology that can digitally map hazardous material threats — be it chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear — from sensor data collection and display them in some form of AR so that these threats can be avoided or, in the case of reconnaissance and decontamination missions, removed.
Users will then be able to identify these threats in exact locations across already-existing mixed reality-supporting platforms — like mobile phones, tablets and heads-up displays — as well as under-development devices like the Integrated Visualization Augmentation System (IVAS).
The research being done in Pittsburgh will build on the company's existing Tactical Assault Kit suite of tools. Teledyne FLIR also said the work it will complete for this project will lay the foundation for future objectives in AI and AR for the U.S. Army’s autonomous decontamination efforts.
“To protect our troops wherever they deploy, we need to leverage the most advanced detection and battlefield management technologies to counter the lethal risk posed by chemical and biological weapons,” Dr. David Cullin, general manager of Teledyne FLIR’s unmanned and integrated solutions business, said in a release. “We’re proud to lead this effort that will help our warfighters intuitively visualize dangerous chem-bio threats, while also advancing future capabilities tied to IVAS and autonomous robotic decontamination.”
Teledyne FLIR has already been awarded $3.55 million of the funds to start the project as part of allocations that include a 12-month base period award and an optional task award. The company employs about 4,000 workers globally.
