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Ukraine's Military Wants To Use the HoloLens For Its Tanks (ubergizmo.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the next-gen-military-technology dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ubergizmo: Microsoft's HoloLens has so far been positioned as a device for gaming. However it seems that over in the Ukraine, they believe that the technology has use in the military as well, particularly by tank commanders. Given that a tank is more or less fully sealed, it means that looking around isn't quite as easy. Usually this is achieved by mounting cameras on the vehicle with the images projected inside the tank, but with the HoloLens, it will make it easier. Created by Limpid Armor, the HoloLens-enabled helmet will be dubbed the Circular Review System. The video feeds that are gathered from the cameras outside of the tank will then be stitched together and sent to the headset, thus allowing the wearer to see around the vehicle. Not only will this allow them to have a better view, but apparently the helmet will also let the wearer tag enemy and friendly soldiers, and also designate targets and send information back to the commander.

56 comments

  1. Blue screen of death by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Brings a new meaning to blue screen of death

    1. Re: Blue screen of death by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am more than positive they'll be selling it to terrorists and jihadists. A holotank for 1/3rd of a tank is a great deal, considering you can use it as a suicide armored car.

  2. ECM for phun and profit by wierd_w · · Score: 0

    So, his long until Russia uses WiFi hacking to override the video feeds, and superimpose comical cartoon characters, anti Ukrainian propaganda, or just straight up edit out enemy armor from the feed?

    Maybe even use the tank cams against the Ukrainians by just monitoring the feeds and using it for intelligence purposes to target the tanks with air support.

    1. Re:ECM for phun and profit by Calydor · · Score: 2

      What on earth makes you think the cameras don't use wires that go into the tank?

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    2. Re:ECM for phun and profit by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Why wouldn't they simply hardwire everything? I'm sure the tank already has a sophisticated network of electronics.

    3. Re:ECM for phun and profit by wierd_w · · Score: 0

      This part?

      Not only will this allow them to have a better view, but apparently the helmet will also let the wearer tag enemy and friendly soldiers, and also designate targets and send information back to the commander.

      Unless you think the tank will be trailing a big fiber bundle behind it...

    4. Re:ECM for phun and profit by sectoidman · · Score: 2

      Tanks typically have a "Commander" position to go along with the gunner, driver, loader(s) (for tanks without an autoloader).

    5. Re:ECM for phun and profit by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Tank commander (inside the tank). And if the tanks have encrypted communications with field command, it'd be there regardless of whether there are cameras on the tank,

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    6. Re:ECM for phun and profit by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Well that's one strategy the Russians could use. Alternatively, they might just try having 50 times as much of everything as whoever they're fighting.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re:ECM for phun and profit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a fucking idiot.

  3. Summary starts out strong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft's HoloLens has so far been positioned as a device for gaming.

    Umm no it isn't it has clearly been marketed as tool, not a toy.

    1. Re: Summary starts out strong... by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Using digital device of company headquartered in country of potential enemy is not wise

    2. Re: Summary starts out strong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      useless as a tool so far, like everything else cobbled by illegal H1B pakistanies in redmond.

    3. Re: Summary starts out strong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if american workers weren't so lazy and entitled

    4. Re: Summary starts out strong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Didn't think that Russia made the hololens.

    5. Re: Summary starts out strong... by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      their other potential enemy, whose intelligence service already has meddled in their government causing civil war and other huge problems

    6. Re: Summary starts out strong... by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Lazy: unwilling to work over 40 hours uncompensated
      Entitled: expecting to get paid a salary commensurate with the work being performed, not half of other people in the same job.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  4. Hostile Lightning tank spotted! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Next up, the Mosquitos will attack and life will suck (pun intended). Hope someone's using a Skyguard.

    Planetmans Unite!

  5. Ahh, the joys of ignorance by s.petry · · Score: 1

    Yeah, they probably won't use Wifi and a Signal would be hard to maintain even from a few inches away. That aside, did you ever notice that tanks lack wired gear hanging outside? Don't you think there is a reason for this feat of Engineering not to have wired components hanging outside? 60-75tons of metal bouncing around over and through tough terrain should immediately give you a clue why nobody uses any such technology.

    US vehicles using cameras have them built in to the armor design, not added after the fact. Drilling holes in armor is a really dumb idea, and leads to weak spots.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Ahh, the joys of ignorance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... US vehicles using cameras have them built in ...

      Cameras, like many electronic devices, require 2 electrical feeds: 'Power in' and 'signal out': The 'signal out' wire can be replaced with a radio but the easiest way to provide power is via wires. It's difficult to believe current tanks don't have this hidden somewhere.

    2. Re:Ahh, the joys of ignorance by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

      ... US vehicles using cameras have them built in ...

      Cameras, like many electronic devices, require 2 electrical feeds: 'Power in' and 'signal out': The 'signal out' wire can be replaced with a radio but the easiest way to provide power is via wires. It's difficult to believe current tanks don't have this hidden somewhere.

      What fighting aircraft and armored vehicles typically have are called "hard points", where weapons and other gear are attached and connected to the vehicle's systems as required.

      In the case of well-designed armored vehicles they are hardened to withstand/mitigate hits and damage, and knowing they are an attractive target, are often designed to be harder to penetrate/damage than other less-critical areas.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    3. Re: Ahh, the joys of ignorance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a good thing poe doesn't exist

    4. Re: Ahh, the joys of ignorance by Malc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Of course this only works up to a point. A Challenger 2 during the last Iraq war was hit by 14 RPGs and an anti-tank missile, the most exxtensive damage being to its sighting system. They got it operational again in six hours after recovery.
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

  6. Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Ukraine is very poor. Sure, they saved some money when they stiffed Russia for their gas bill, but not enough to be able to spend on frivolous things.

    How much would you bet that any work done to develop this is paid for by U.S. tax dollars so that it can all be funneled back to some big defense contractor? Probably at many times the cost of off-the-shelf HoloLenses. All justified because it has to be customized and ruggedized.

    1. Re:Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How much would you bet that any work done to develop this is paid for by U.S. tax dollars so that it can all be funneled back to some big defense contractor?

      If Trump wins, that seems like a strong possibility. He'd have us financing Russia to run roughshod over Ukraine and the Balkans.

    2. Re: Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so are india and pakistan, and it does not stop microshit corp from outsourcing 60% of work on windows to that shithole

    3. Re:Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "He'd have us financing Russia to run roughshod over Ukraine and the Balkans."

      You have a point. Russia's Military spending is a tenth of what the US spends currently, and way below that of the Soviet era. So the Russification of neighboring States has been put on hold for a decade or so. But it _will_ continue, as it has since the days of Peter the Great and his expanding Russian Empire.
      Trump is dangerous for European stability. He is far too friendly with current amoral Russian Oligarchs, with his own amoral "Business is Business" Philosophy. I'm not keen on Clinton, with her Realpolitik outlook in Foreign Affairs, but at least she isn't a Real Estate Hustler who leered while pimping out her own Daughter.

      Back to the Tech: Mainland Europe is still a Tank Theatre, and a potential ~1400 T-14s is giving Europe the Willies. Meanwhile, current US Tank Tech is a couple of decades behind, largely because the chances of the US being invaded by Tanks is remote. Still, other countries can be used as US Proxies for developing New Tech. It would be a shame to see the Ukraine run over roughshod, (Frankly, until recently, I didn't care... I do now), so if the HoloLens helps them even a little bit, I'm all for it, even if Microsoft enriches itself further in the process.
      Oh dear, I think that I've caught a dose of Realpolitik...

      Captcha: onward

    4. Re:Where's the money coming from? by smooth+wombat · · Score: 0, Troll

      Sure, they saved some money when they stiffed Russia for their gas bill, but not enough to be able to spend on frivolous things.

      Considering how much money the Russian puppet Yanukovych stole from Ukraine before he fled into the arms of Russia, and how much Russia owes Ukraine for the damage it is causing by its invasion and support of the terrorists in East Ukraine, Russia is the one who is spending money on frivolous things it can't afford.

      Since we now know how much money Russia is spending to support the terrorists in Ukraine, as well as its plans to try and destabilize Ukraine, it's no wonder you think Ukraine is poor for wanting to be out from under the thumb of Russian corruption.

      Then again, with the continuing stream of dead Russian soldiers leaving Ukraine, Putin is having to dig deep to pay out death benefits to the families. Speaking of digging deep, how about all those unmarked graves of dead Russian soldiers sprinkled about Ukraine? How much to you think that's costing Putin?

      How much would you bet that any work done to develop this is paid for by U.S. tax dollars so that it can all be funneled back to some big defense contractor?

      Considering the theft Putin is perpetrating in Crimea by stealing people's property and businesses, perhaps you should be asking how many of your rubles are going into Putin's pockets and the pockets of his oligarch friends?

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    5. Re:Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do the Balkans have to do with this?

    6. Re:Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      slavic peoples

    7. Re:Where's the money coming from? by manu0601 · · Score: 2

      You have a point. Russia's Military spending is a tenth of what the US spends currently, and way below that of the Soviet era. So the Russification of neighboring States has been put on hold for a decade or so. But it _will_ continue, as it has since the days of Peter the Great and his expanding Russian Empire.

      If you want to understand Russia's moves, you need to consider its point of view: For Russia, NATO is an hostile expanding power at work in eastern Europe.

    8. Re: Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      you are an idiot. There never was a country called "ukraine" before Soviet Union. You have to thank Lenin and Stalin for creating that shitty republic out of primarily Russian territories and Russian people.

      Say it - "Thank you, Lenin and Stalin, for creating my shitty ukro-republic that will soon cease to exist under its own weight".

    9. Re: Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Russia has about as much claim over Ukraine as Lithuania and Poland, and perhaps even Turkey. Invading, subjugating and attempting to colonise parts of a country for long periods of time doesn't give Russia a right to claim the area as Russian.

    10. Re: Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      again, idiot. Find a single polish or turkish native speaker, or an artefact in that shitty ukro-republic.
      Eastern part is a Russian territory. Just like Texas is american, Scotland is british, etc.

    11. Re: Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So when are you russian assholes gonna give Finland back the territory you stole?

    12. Re:Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even without stuff that's disputed by Putin apologists, during the annexation of Crimea, Russia scuttled a number of Ukrainian warships, and seized the fixed infrastructure paid for by Ukraine without recompense, all this isn't in dispute, as Putin admitted it was indeed his soldiers that took over the peninsula and admits it's return to Russia was a foregone conclusion regardless of the sham referendum.

      So the fact remains that even without the stuff that Kremlin die-hards would excuse and refuse to acknowledge, Russia has admitted to stealing and destroying billions more Ukrainians assets than Ukraine could ever remotely hope to get back by not paying a gas bill (which broke WTO rules anyway, meaning Ukraine was right to do so).

    13. Re: Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you want to draw comparisons with the UK, you'd be using "English" instead of "British". If you extend argument your about Ukraine to Scotland then you're basically saying Scotland can't declare independence because they've been Anglicised so much by the English that it's really and English country. It's not their own Gaelic language is very wide-spread. Scotland has been dominated by England for far longer than Russia has tried to colonise Ukraine.

      Sorry, who's the idiot?

      Ukraine isn't Russian, it hasn't historically been Russian, the Russian Empire and USSR subjugation is really only a recent thing, and the ethnic majority of the Ukrainian people don't want Russia involved in their country. Get over it.

    14. Re: Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who the fuck are you to tell Russia what to do with their historic territories.
      Go fuck a goat and mind your own fucking business you goat fucking monkey of scotland.

    15. Re: Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      again, that's up to fins who live in the territory you claim Russia took from them. No fins - no territory, fuck off and mind your own fucking business.

    16. Re: Where's the money coming from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see I won this argument. Thanks for confirming. Don't let facts or reality get in your way, eh?

  7. Maybe a dumb question but... by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    why do they still need people in the tank?

    1. Re:Maybe a dumb question but... by Harlequin80 · · Score: 2

      Because radio signals can be degraded completely. With UAVs at least they have altitude and clearer lines of sight to repeaters and directional laser systems. A tank rolling through a forest or city streets doesn't have that luxury.

    2. Re:Maybe a dumb question but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "why do they still need people in the tank?"
      That is not a dumb question. However, the Tech isn't ready yet. Any remote Radio Control is trivial to override at Ground level, with something so slow as a Tank, and using AI isn't yet remotely feasible. Once the Tank starts blasting away at anything that moves, at what point does it decide to stop?

      But I can give you a hint about the Future, in the form of a question:
      Why has so much money been spent in the last couple of decades by the US, Russia, the EU, China, and Japan, on basic Neutrino Research?

      (BTW, the first Particle Beam to be intelligently modulated, by Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" of all things, was done at Berkeley some twenty years ago...)

    3. Re:Maybe a dumb question but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In Ukraine, people are cheaper than tech.

  8. I've worked with HoloLens by Tinsoldier314 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    By far the best thing about it was it's ability to rapidly construct meshes of the space you're in and track head movements so that holograms displayed in the scene remain stable as you move your head and move around. It seems to me, almost none of those strengths come to play when you're sitting in chair/cockpit of a tank. I wouldn't consider the IMU and transparent OLED screens to be the biggest differentiators of the HoloLens. Also, the viewing angle of the screens sucks balls and is by far the most limiting aspect of the HoloLens experience. Furthermore, the HoloLens is a stand-alone Windows 10 machine which limits the amount of processing power available. Again, if you're seated in a tank then you don't need a cordless experience along with all the handicaps that entails.

    1. Re:I've worked with HoloLens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good points. However as a first cut it already shows wide potential across many businesses. I can't discuss the products but we have several developers skilling up because of client demand.

    2. Re:I've worked with HoloLens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the idea is that you can do a sort of "invisible tank" view, with camera views translated (streetview style) onto big virtual screens, as well as fixed geographical coordinates and features, so that the commander doesn't have to poke their head out to get that intuitive grasp of what's going on.

  9. ITAR still exists... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... and I'm certain Microsoft does not want anything to do with the regulatory headache of even EAR compliance.

  10. In the news today.... by BatGnat · · Score: 2

    In the news today, Ukraine loses war while tanks apply updates....

  11. star trek did it by thygate · · Score: 1

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pjhH...

  12. CoD "expert" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There were all kinds of auxiliary things strapped to our bradleys, tanks, and hmmwvs. You seem to think everybody gets all the new shiny shit right off the production line. You're wrong. Which area of the middle east were you fighting in, Petry? You cannot learn military tactics from CoD no matter how much you think you can. Leave military things to us military people, umkay?

    1. Re:CoD "expert" by s.petry · · Score: 1

      No, I don't think everyone gets new things off the assembly line. Not only am I an Army Vet, I spent 10 years building the computer systems used to design, engineer, and upgrade most US Military vehicles. The Bradley had built in vision systems, you would not hang a go-pro off the side to replace it. You hung crap off the side, but nothing was mission critical because you know what happens to vehicles in normal run mode let alone combat. The Ukrainian military is running mostly T72s and some T80s. You are not going to drill holes in the tank and hang homemade gear on it.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    2. Re:CoD "expert" by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2

      The only T-72s Ukraine uses are these that were actually sold to some African country but were never delivered. The ukrainian tank factories only can maintain T-64 and the diesel version of T-80 because it is what they used to manufacture in the soviet times. T-72 is being built in Nizhny Tagil, Russia. This was actually the proof of Russian military helping the separatists - they have used several T-72B3, which Ukraine never had. Ukraine used to have thousands of T-72 in 1991 (older versions) , but because of the aforementioned maintenance issues (they cannot manufacture the T-72 engines and autoloaders) the ones that were still good were sold, a few of them were downgraded with T-64 engines and also mostly sold, and the rest still rusts on their tank graveyards.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  13. f35 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If this works you can use it in the f35/JSF and save some money at last.

  14. Battlezone by neo-mkrey · · Score: 1

    for realz