U.S. Navy divers will soon be getting new high-tech augmented reality helmets. The DAVD — Divers Augmented Vision Display, because everything military needs an acronym — is a high-resolution, AR heads-up display in the diving helmet that will continuously update as the diver goes about their real-time Navy business. The new helmet technologies come from the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division and Underwater Systems Development Project.
The HUD is embedded in the dive helmet, rather than attached to it; divers can turn it on and off, and communicate topside to reposition the display. If you thing this looks like something from Stark Industries and Iron Man, well, it does. (And by the way, there’s a real-life company called Stark Industries, and guess what: it makes air compressors for SCUBA divers.)
The system display can provide divers with a display of sector sonar, photos, text messages, and AR videos. According to a Navy press release, the DAVD “places the information right before a diver’s eyes with a look and feel comparable to a point-of-view video game display.” That would be one heck of an expensive video game display, one that none of us could afford but that we’ll be paying for anyway.