ABSTRACT
Computers have evolved from huge mainframes to bulky workstations and desktops to slim notebooks and now to highly portable handheld or wearable computers. Wearable and handheld computers have great potential for military use, and there is currently great interest in what these highly portable devices can do. This chapter focuses on highly portable computing devices, those that are wearable (belt, wrist, and head-mounted) and handheld, and the term wearable computers (WCs) will often be used when referring to all these devices. The chapter briefly discusses input/
output devices since the need for their miniaturization is one of the primary motivations for using WCs. It then summarizes the areas of military application of these devices: communications, position determination and map functions, report preparation and calculation, repair and maintenance, medical support, and the digitized battlefield. It also discusses the wearable computing equipment being developed for U.S. Army infantry units, a prototype of which was recently tested in a recent Advanced Warfighter Exercise.*
Although miniaturization has allowed computers to become significantly smaller, the size of conventional input and output devices is now one of the main factors (other factors include thermal dissipation and power supply/ battery size) limiting further miniaturization. Therefore, alternatives to the traditional keyboard and monitor input/output devices are being developed by the military and commercial companies and are competitively evolving in the civilian marketplace. These alternatives primarily concern pen computing, speech, and head-mounted displays.
