Anduril has officially taken over the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) headset development project for military use from Microsoft. The project originally used HoloLens technology when it was announced in 2018. Various problems in field use such as comfort and battery life became issues until the project was delayed. Microsoft itself has ended development of HoloLens since 2022 but entered into a partnership with Anduril last year.
Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey said his company will double its efforts to make IVAS better than expected. Anduril is now responsible for the production, hardware, software and integration of their self-developed Lattice artificial intelligence (AI) system with IVAS.
With IVAS, infantrymen can see the location of hidden enemies when they are detected by drones in real time. This increases awareness of members in the field with images displayed on the IVAS augmented reality (AR) display. It can also provide warnings of the presence of enemy drones that are hunting the area of operation.
Before founding Anduril, Luckey was the founder of Oculus and the company was later acquired by Meta. The expertise and knowledge gathered while at Oculus, which was developed for entertainment, will be used by IVAS for military purposes.