Land Warrior captures San Jose

Thursday, February 15, 2001

San Jose, CA--In what may be a trade show first, the San Jose Police conducted a raid at the San Jose Convention Center during the Wireless Portable Symposium & Exhibit, where Pacific Consultants, Mountain View, CA, is exhibiting its Land Warrior soldier weapon system. Police officers checked the Land Warrior rifle, determined it had no firing capability, and left the show -- only to return later in the afternoon when they were off-duty to evaluate the technology for possible use by SWAT teams.

What's so hot about Land Warrior? In U.S. Army field exercises held last fall, a platoon of 42 soldiers equipped with only a partial Land Warrior system showed superior capability when fighting more experienced and better-trained infantrymen. Developer Pacific Consultants engineered Land Warrior in just over a year.

Land Warrior consits of an Intel 2000 computer and radio subsystem tied to a wireless LAN and global positioning system (GPS). The communications system enables conference calling, email, and image (both still and video) transmission. WIth a range of over 2.3 km unobstructed, other features include thermal imaging capabilitiesto allow detection of hidden or moving targets, amultifunctional laser, and a video sight with which the soldier can fire around corners without exposing himself. The user accesses these systems by means of helmet-mounted display and control equipment. Despite all these capabilities, though, Land Warrior's equipment vest weighs 16.4 pounds and the associated helmet weighs a mere three pounds.

Pacific Consultants wrote over 300,000 lines of code for the software subsystem that drives Land Warrior's voice/data/image communications systems and tactical and mission data support. It also supports MS Windows for compatibility with commercial applications.

Because Land Warrioruses flexible circuitry extensively, it can be adapted to smaller, lighter vests for non-military applications --as evidenced by the keen interest by the San Jose police -- such as SWAT Teams.