Futuristic Iron Man-Style Helmet Developed For Divers
Futuristic Hollywood superhero fantasies actually inspire real-world military-related inventions. Recently, the US Navy has created an Iron Man-style helmet specifically designed for its divers. While there are striking features that resemble the kind of contraption that Tony Stark wears in the Iron Man movies, it is not the type that you'd expect divers to wear to fight some bad guys.
The new diving helmet is reserved for top US Navy specialists or elite operatives. Features include HD resolution heads-up display that allow divers to send, receive, and display images and videos during operations.
This head gear is technically called the Divers Augmented Vision Display (DAVD), a big yellow-colored helmet with Iron Man-like technological capability developed by the Navy's Underwater Systems Development Project, the Morning Ticker reported.
"By building this HUD directly inside the dive helmet instead of attaching a display on the outside, it can provide a capability similar to something from an 'Ironman' movie," Navy Engineer Dennis Gallagher commented as quoted in a Navy press release. "You have everything you visually need right there within the helmet."
With the DAVD's augmented reality (AR), divers will be privy to extremely cool high tech features like real-time visuals with sonar, topside view of other real-time AR videos and info such as the wearer's location, messages, diagrams, graphs, images, and so on. Apart from military applications, the invention may also have commercial spin-offs later on according to Tech Crunch.
"Having real-time operational data enables [divers] to be more effective and safe in their missions -- providing expanded situational awareness and increased accuracy in navigating to a target such as a ship, downed aircraft, or other objects of interest," said the US Navy as quoted in a statement as per Tech Radar report.
Simulation testing of the Navy's Iron Man helmet will commence in October this year with field testing taking place sometime next year.
