Augmented Reality Head-Up Display Fullface Mask (ARHUDFM)
Frequently Asked Questions
Problem
Deficiencies of the human systems used in the U.S. and German armed forces and in NATO: a distributed communication between units and between all soldiers, orientation and navigation considering fast dynamic environmental factors, the effect on concentration when performing multiple simultaneous actions, disadvantages of portable wearable devices, a lack of important additional electronic functions, a high cost of modern equipment.
Several problems at once.
- Distributed communication between units and between all soldiers:
- Quality of communication
- Voice communication with the enemy at a distance
- Encryption
- Simultaneous communication through multiple channels
- Accuracy of information and communication
- Duration of communication sessions
As a rule, the commanders of the individual units have digital remote communication devices with encryption algorithms. However, most of those involved have simpler radios that are suppressed by electronic warfare or suffer interference in terrain with terrain elevation changes. In addition, if the unit is performing tasks in small groups, it lacks communications with other command centers, much less other domains. Voice information is exchanged through nodes, which slows down communication considerably. An important point is certainly the fact that voice communication between NATO units from different countries encounters language barriers.
The solution is a software-defined radio (SDR) embedded in an augmented reality mask that operates flexibly on an extended frequency spectrum and broadband with multiple protocols and with less transmit power. The result is less interference with others and communication errors, more workarounds for radio jamming, and increased transmission range. Multi-channel one-to-many communication shortens the duration of sessions and the speed of data exchange, especially for short text and character messages, graphics and GPS position exchange. This improves communication and coordination many times over.
Loud communication with the enemy or the population by each fighter avoids misunderstandings.
- Orientation and navigation considering fast dynamic environmental factors:
- Friend-or-foe system
- Speed of map reading and positioning
- Exchange of positions within the same unit and especially during inter-domain interaction
- Capture of enemy fire positions and missile launch positions, approach to distant objects, and object recognition
The friend-or-foe system is still a prospective system for all Alliance countries and is not yet widely used. It is not effective without the use of augmented reality technologies. Another problem is the need for rapid target acquisition in the field and real-time navigation with the ability to see the positions of friendly units and vehicles, as well as captured fire positions and enemy movements, detect heat and smoke trails, and distinguish
between civilians. This requires receiving data from the drone and from other friendly units.
The navigation grid should show not only the landscape but also the distance and movement path of friendly and enemy positions, their numbers, and identification codes for communication. The optical ability to zoom in on distant objects, object recognition using computer vision and identification with satellite imagery or electronic maps and day and night thermographic vision combined with optical and infrared spectral vision must be available at all times.
It is important that soldiers are not distracted by these tasks and do not lose sight of their surroundings while using other equipment (navigation device, tablet PC, map, binoculars, rangefinder, thermal imaging camera, radio, and night vision device). All devices should be integrated and not interfere with observation.
Business Model
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How will you make money? How much does customer acquisition cost? How many users are paying?
Market
Competition
What competition do you fear most? Who are your competitors? Who might become competitors? Why won’t a huge corporation build something like this? Compared to your competition, how do you compete with respect to price, features, and performance? What are the barriers to entry?
Competitive Advantage
What do you understand that others don’t? What’s new about what you make? Why isn’t someone already doing this? What, exactly, makes you different from existing options? What are the key things about your field that outsiders don’t understand? What do you know about this space/product others don’t know? How is your product different?
Customer
What are the top things users want? Who needs what you’re making? Who would use your product? What resistance will customers have to trying you and how will you overcome it? How are you meeting customers? How are you understanding customer needs? What do you understand about your users? Who is going to be your first paying customer? How do you know customers need what you are building? What makes new users try you? Why do the reluctant ones hold back?
Financials
What is your burn rate? What are the company’s three-year projections? What are the key assumptions underlying your projections? What future equity or debt financing will be necessary? How much of a stock option pool is being set aside for employees? When will the company get to profitability? How much burn will occur until the company gets to profitability? What are your unit economics? What are the factors that limit faster growth? What are the key metrics that the management team focuses on?
Fundraising
Have you raised funding? How much equity and debt has the company raised; what is the capitalization structure? How long can you go before funding? How much is your company valued at? Do you prefer debt or equity? How much is being raised in this round? What is the company’s desired pre-money valuation? Will existing investors participate in the round? What is the planned use of proceeds from this round? What milestones will the financing get you to?
Growth & Marketing
Why do the reluctant users hold back? Where do new users come from? How many users do you have? How will customers and/or users find out about you? What is your distribution strategy? What is your user growth rate? What is your growth like? What makes new users try you? What’s the conversion rate? How much does customer acquisition cost? How do you define success for you and your company? What is the projected lifetime value of a customer? What advertising will you be doing? What is the typical sales cycle between initial customer contact and closing of a sale?
Idea
So, what are you working on? Why did you pick this idea to work on? Are you open to changing your idea? Someone just showed us an idea like this right before you guys. I don’t like it. What else do you have? Have you considered various mutations of your idea?
Legal
Have you incorporated, or formed any legal entity (like an LLC) yet? What kind of entity and in what state or country was the entity formed? Will you reincorporate as a US company? Please describe the breakdown of the equity ownership in percentages among the founders, employees, and any other stockholders. Are any of the founders covered by noncompetes or intellectual property agreements that overlap with your project? Who writes code, or does other technical work on your product? Was any of it done by a non-founder? Is there anything else we should know about your company? What key intellectual property does the company have (patents, patents pending, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks, domain names)? What comfort do you have that the company’s intellectual property does not violate the rights of a third party? How was the company’s intellectual property developed? Would any prior employers of a team member have a potential claim to the company’s intellectual property?
Market
Who needs what you’re making? How big of an opportunity is there? If your startup succeeds, what additional areas might you be able to expand into? How much money could you make in one year (in 5 years)?
Market Validation
How do you know customers need what you’re making? How do you know people want this? What part of your project are you going to build first?
Product & Technology
What is the next step in product evolution? How does your product work in more detail? What’s the conversion rate? What has surprised you about user behavior? How is your product different? What is rocket science here? What are the major product milestones? What are the key differentiated features of your product or service? What have you learned from early versions of the product or service? Provide a demonstration of the product or service. What are the two or three key features you plan to add?
Recruiting
Who would be your next hire? Who would you hire or how would you add to your team? How many employees do you have?
Roadmap
What are you going to do next? Six months from now, what’s going to be your biggest problem?
Team
Who is “the boss”? Will your team stick at this? How did your team meet? Who in your team does what? What domain expertise do you have? Why did your team get together? In what ways are you resourceful? Would you relocate to X? What will you do if we don’t fund you? How do we know your team will stick together?
Team Experience
What else have you created together? What’s the worst thing that has happened? What’s an impressive thing you have done? Tell us something surprising you have done? What problems/hurdles are you anticipating? What obstacles will you face and how will you overcome them? What’s the funniest thing that has happened to you? What systems have you hacked? What’s the biggest mistake you have made? Tell us about a tough problem you solved? What’s the funniest thing that has happened to you?
Timing
Why hasn’t this worked before?
See also
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