Haptic Automated Communication System (HACS)

Under complementary Phase II efforts, ATinc and DI will improve and integrate the System for Tactile Representation of Advanced Patterns (STRAP) and the Team Status and Signaling System (TS3) prototypes to create a bi-directional Haptic Automated Communication System (HACS), which will enable real-time wireless transmission and tactile presentation of gathered status information and hand-signals for teams of infantry Marines. This work will validate the theoretical approach through extensive testing of the systems by end users. The primary objectives of these Phase II efforts are 1) STRAP and TS3 Core System Enhancements, 2) Enhanced STRAP and TS3 System Validation, 3) Integration of STRAP and TS3 into HACS, and 4) Lab testing and Validation. Additional option objectives will support further enhancement of the STRAP and TS3 systems, integration of HACS with current field systems, development of additional prototype systems to enable fire team and squad-level testing and validation, development of a multimodal commander interface (COMINT) to allow unit commanders to send and receive HACS information, and field effectiveness testing.