Contra Costa Times May 12, 2003
'Land Warrior' technology is the next battlefield edge
By David Whelan
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Military men watch movies like John Wayne's "Sands of Iwo Jima" for inspiration. But as the work of Mountain View-based Pemstar Pacific Consultants progresses on the Army's futuristic Land Warrior system, new recruits may start finding movies like "Robocop" and "Terminator" equally relevant.
The cyborg-like Land Warrior program represents the Army's attempt to plug individual infantrymen into the same technology that pilots and submarine captains use in battle. It means incorporating functions like night vision, radio, protective clothing, navigation and positioning systems, weapons guidance and other sensors and gadgets into one piece of equipment that soldiers wear like a uniform.
If all goes well, soldiers may someday become half-man, half-machine.
"What we're trying to achieve is the same level of overmatched capability that we have in the air, on the ground," said Bret Herscher, president and founder of Pemstar Pacific Consultants. "No air force would ever fly against the U.S. Air Force -- not even our allies, like the British."
Pacific Consultants, a division of Minnesota-based contract manufacturer Pemstar, grosses about $25 million a year, according to the company, by performing high-level instrument design. Founded in 1995, it employs 90 engineers in Mountain View, most of whom hold Ph.D.s.
Typical projects involve designing a heart stent for a big pharmaceutical company or an electronic router for a telecom company. Four years ago, the company branched into the defense business when the Army came to Silicon Valley to update Land Warrior after the 40-pound prototype, produced by Raytheon, proved to be too bulky.
Menlo Park-based Exponent, a scientific consulting company, won the contract and brought in Pacific Consultants because of its experience designing wireless equipment. Now defense giant General Dynamics holds the contract for Land Warrior, which was just re-upped this year for $60 million. Pacific Consultants' role has increased so that they have a hand in updating all of Land Warrior's hardware, though Herscher said he can not say how much his company's piece of the contract is worth.
Silicon Valley ingenuity has always kept businesses, with their networks and computers, running smoothly. As the Army has gotten more sophisticated about using computing power in battle, it is also starting to hire private companies to upgrade its systems rather than rely on in-house technology.
"By using off-the-shelf technology we saved the Army money, as they didn't have to reinvent the wheel,"said Angela Meyer, a vice president at Exponent, which first brought the project to Silicon Valley. In fact, the system itself is estimated to only cost about $30,000 per person, down from initial estimates of $60,000. The weight has fallen from 40 pounds to around 10 pounds.
While Raytheon spent over $100 million during the 1990s working on the first Land Warrior system, the Silicon Valley team produced its first prototype in six months for $2 million, using Windows software and computer chips anyone can buy at Radio Shack or Fry's Electronics.
Military decisions to buy existing technology is a controversial, decade-old trend, says John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense policy group in Virginia. The military on the one hand sees the benefits of private industry's technology but worries it has less control over what gets developed.
Despite all the excitement and money spent, the Land Warrior remains in prototype form. Pacific Consultants' Herscher said it may be more than a year before soldiers can use it in battle.
The Army also has not been able to test other aspects of the "digitized infantry" programs in real life. The cutting-edge 4th Mechanized Infantry entered Iraq from Kuwait in early April, but the war ended before it saw real action, said Pike.
If it had, it would have been able to try out Force XXI technology, which uses computers to digitally link together tanks, helicopters and personnel carriers, so they are all on the same digital wavelength, as Pike described it.
If all goes well with the work of Pacific Consultants on Land Warrior, combat infantrymen will be on the same wavelength, too.
Copyright © 2003, Contra Costa Times
