Haptic belts and other wearable devices which could guide you’ll not exactly be a brand new idea — we’ve even seen some DIY attempts — however the US Army testing them? Well, that’s something worth noting. As New Scientist reports, the military Research Office in North Carolina is now engaged on just any such device (likely more advanced than the only pictured here), and hopes that the belts could eventually be used to remotely guide soldiers at the battlefield. That’s done with a mixture of GPS, an accelerometer and a compass — and, needless to say, the haptic section of the equation, which vibrates or pulses to indicate the soldier within the right direction, or indicate when they’re nearing their target. The concept there being to minimize the necessity for any handheld devices (no less than until thought helmets become a reality), that can both take the soldiers’ eyes off the battlefield and potentially reveal their position at night. There’s still no indication as to when the belts might actually see use within the field, but early tests show that they are at the very least as accurate as a handheld GPS, and the warriors say they really like it.
[Image credit: Sreekar Krishna ]
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