The contract will go toward design and testing for prototypes of equipment for combined-arms squads. Work will be conducted in Grand Prairie, Texas and other locations throughout the U.S. and should finish by Aug. 14, 2019.
The DARPA squad-x would provide mechanized and airborne units access to real-time surveillance feeds and other technology. Currently this technology is too bulky, heavy and complex for a small unit on foot to leverage.
In 2016, DARPA had awarded Lockheed Martin a $10.6 million contract to start work on Phase II of the Squad X Core Technologies program, which is intended to deliver the kind of situational awareness available to command posts to smaller deployed units.
DARPA goal is to have realtime coordination of a squad with its flying and ground based drones and to have all relavant sensor data being presented in a useful way.
DARPA wants to use the sensors and information to help the squad cut through the fog of war to be able to move quickly and effectively eliminate threats within 1000 meters.
SOURCES- DARPA, Defense Systems
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