Harris Corp. will show off this new ruggedized Android tablet at the upcoming Association of the U.S. Army winter symposium. (Harris Corp.)
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Harris Corp. will show off a new ruggedized Android tablet designed to keep soldiers better connected on the battlefield at the upcoming Association of the U.S. Army winter symposium.
Harris shared the new technology with Defense News the week before the AUSA event, which will be held Feb. 22-24 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The device weighs 2 pounds and has a 7-inch-wide screen, designed to be viewable in all types of weather and with night-vision goggles. The touch screen also can be manipulated if a soldier is wearing gloves.
It is designed to plug in to any tactical radio, connecting it to the broader network. At the company’s Washington offices, the tablet was tethered to a Harris handheld AN/PRC-117G radio, which soldiers are using in Afghanistan.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Dennis Moran, now vice president of government business development for Harris Corp.’s RF Communications business, said the company used soldier feedback from earlier prototypes to help shape the design.
Now that the Army has made big strides toward creating the infrastructure for its battlefield network, it can begin to take a closer look at devices that deliver information to the tactical edge, Moran said.
He said Harris has not offered it in any of the Army’s Network Integration Evaluations to date, but that it is part of a system the company is offering for the exercise taking place in the fall at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Harris and other companies are still waiting on the Army and the Defense Department to provide direction on how applications will be made available to the military, Moran said.
In the meantime, companies are beginning to develop their own apps so that their devices can provide some basic capabilities to soldiers. Some of the applications running on the Harris tablet were from the commercial Android application store, including a popular chat function.
“This device has to have a longer shelf life than a smartphone,” so it has been designed to be able to accept future technologies or applications, Moran said.
Security for the devices, and the software programs that could run on them, is also still being determined.
Moran said Harris continues to participate in discussions with the National Security Agency.
