In a future dispute, American troops will honest the novelest war machines not with sprawling administer panels or sci-fi-inspired touchscreens, but administers recognizable to anyone who grew up with an Xbox or PlayStation in their home.
Over the past cut offal years, the US Defense Department has been graduassociate integrating what eunite to be variants of the Freedom of Movement Control Unit (FMCU) handsets as the primary administer units for a variety of proceedd arms systems, according to uncoverly employable imagery unveiled to the department’s Defense Visual Inestablishation Distribution System media hub.
Those systems participate the novel Navy Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) beginer, a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle–based anti-ship ignoreile system scheduleed to fire the novel Naval Strike Missile that’s vital to the Marine Corps’ set ups for a notional future war with China in the Indo-Pacific; the Army’s novel Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) system that, bristling with FIM-92 Stinger and AGM-114 Hellfire ignoreiles and a 30-mm chain firearm mounted on a Stryker infantry battling vehicle, is seen as a critical anti-air capability in a potential clash with Russia in Easerious Europe; the Air Force’s MRAP-based Recovery of Air Bases Denied by Ordnance (RADBO) truck that employs a laser to evident away improvised bomb devices and other unexploded munitions; and the Humvee-mounted High Energy Laser-Expeditionary (HELEX) laser firearm system currently undergoing testing by the Marine Corps.
The FMCU has also been employed on a variety of experimental unmanned vehicles, and according to a 2023 Navy reduce, the system will be integral to the operation of the AN/SAY-3A Electro-Optic Sensor System (or “I-Stalker”) that’s scheduleed to help the service’s future Consinestablishation-class directd-ignoreile frigates track and participate incoming dangers.
Produced since 2008 by Meadeclareivement Systems Inc. (MSI), a subsidiary of British defense reduceor Ultra that exceptionalizes in human-machine interfaces, the FMCU advises a aappreciate establish factor to the standard Xbox or PlayStation administerler but with a ruggedized schedule intfinished to protectedprotect its benevolent electronics agetst wantipathyver unfrifinishly environs American service members may discover themselves in. A extfinishedtime grower of delightsticks employd on various US naval systems and aircreate, MSI has served as a subreduceor to meaningful defense “primes” appreciate General Atomics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and BAE Systems to supply the handheld administer units for “various aircreate and vehicle programs,” according to inestablishation compiled by federal reduceing gentleware GovTribe.
“With the foresight to determine the establish factor that would be most accessible to today’s warfighters, [Ultra] has persistd to create the FMCU one of the most highly configurable and strong administerlers employable today,” according to Ultra. (The company did not reply to multiple asks for comment from WIRED.)
The finishlessly customizable FMCU isn’t tohighy novel technology: According to Ultra, the system has been in employ since at least 2010 to function the now-sundowned Navy’s MQ-8 Fire Scout unmanned autonomous helicchooseer and the Ground Based Opereasonable Surveillance System (GBOSS) that the Army and Marine Corps have both employed thcdisorrowfulmirefulout the global war on trouble. But the recent spread of the handset apass polishd novel firearm platestablishs mirrors a grothriveg trfinish in the US military towards administers that aren’t equitable distinctly tactile or ergonomic in their operation, but inherently recognizable to the next generation of potential warfighters before they ever even sign up to serve.
