FLC | Army adapts high-tech goggles for COVID-19 screening

Army adapts high-tech goggles for COVID-19 screening

April 28, 2020

High-tech equipment designed to give soldiers the same kind of information that fighter pilots rely on are now being used for screening in the Army’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The Army is repurposing the emerging technology of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) to rapidly assess the temperature of hundreds of soldiers reporting to Fort Benning, Georgia, for training such as Ranger School or boot camp.The Microsoft-designed goggles and its “heads up display” are meant to give soldiers complete situational awareness without requiring them to take their eyes off the target.

“A week ago, we were talking about the potential impacts of the pandemic on the IVAS program. Today we’re talking about the potential impacts of IVAS on the pandemic,” said Brig. Gen. Dave Hodne, commandant of the Infantry School at Fort Benning.

Last week, Army officials announced they would start fielding the new equipment in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021. At the same time, IVAS projects officer Tom Bowman was watching the news about COVID-19 and realized that the digital thermal sensors in IVAS could be adapted to detect a fever.

Microsoft quickly agreed to tweak the software, and the repurposed goggles were shipped to Fort Benning four days later. A team of experts trained military staff there how to use them.

Troops arriving at Fort Benning file into a room and pause for five seconds while facing a soldier wearing the IVAS goggles. The trainee’s temperature then registers on the display, and anyone with a fever is moved to an onsite medical station for evaluation. The goggles are quickly recalibrated for accuracy after 10 soldiers are checked. Army officials said it takes less than 30 minutes to measure the temperature of 300 soldiers. The method is more economical and sanitary than using traditional thermometers, they said.

"We’ve always planned for an agile software system and a digital platform that can be upgraded and adapted to use against emerging threats in the future,” Bowman said. “No one anticipated the next threat to emerge would be a virus, but that’s the enemy we face today.”