European armies operate with a wide variety of soldier equipment, adapted to their own needs and combat doctrines. Many national initiatives have been launched to develop Soldier Systems, since the beginning of the 2000s, as a system approach that encompasses many different systems and subsystems to increase soldier capabilities and reduce the total weight of their equipment:
With the aim of converging towards harmonized solutions, the Generic Open Soldier System Reference Architecture (GOSSRA) developed – under the PADR umbrella – an open reference architecture which set guidelines, standards and system structures to facilitate the development, integration and interoperability of soldier systems. The need for harmonization does not only concern existing capacities and equipment but also interchangeability and interoperability of future capabilities, at the individual soldier level as far as soldier team levels. Harmonized soldier system architecture combined with enhanced capability suites responds to multiple challenges: – Provide products with standardized interfaces around an open architecture, which can be assembled using a modular approach, and allow soldiers to optimize and customize their equipment to their own needs and the dedicated mission (and finally which reduce the total weight of their load);
– Provide enhanced products with better performances compared to existing ones for all domains of dismounted combat: Survivability, Sustainability, Mobility, Localization and navigation, Perception and Situational awareness, Lethality / Smart engagement, and Communication;
– Provide connected products with extended capabilities for networking and interoperability with C4I and tactical cloud systems.
– Study, design and evaluation of an advanced and open architecture of soldier core system. This standardized system architecture will allow soldiers to operate and share a wide range of equipment, from combat clothing and protection, up to innovative concepts such as exoskeleton and UxVs.
– Study, design and evaluation of innovative individual capability suites made of hardware devices and software applications. It will be possible to implement or interface them with the soldier core system architecture to address dismounted combat domains.
– Study, design and evaluation of innovative networking capability. Enhanced soldiers’ situation awareness through AR devices and better coordination will allow more efficiency at tactical unit level. – Development and evaluation of full-size demonstrators.
Adaptation of the equipment to the mission: through better protection, reduced weight and improved ergonomics, as the modular approach improves SWAP up to the system level.
Augmented performances at soldier level: in particular for visual and sound perception and cognition of their individual situation.
Augmented performances at team-level: through network connectivity and shared situation awareness and coordination of combat with other mounted/dismounted units on the battlefield (vehicles and UxVs).
The ACHILE project (101103558) is CO-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.