Firing A Missile Will Be Like Playing a Video Game

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In the past few years, playing video games have slowly been evolving from a simple way to relax and kill time into a legitimate profession. Some countries have even considered taking professional gamers as new recruits for the military, specifically due to their gaming career.

While the types of gamers vary from the casual hobbyist to the elite professional, video games are often designed so that anyone could pick up a controller and understand how the game works relatively quickly. Raytheon has taken this point into consideration when developing the upgrade for a missile control system.

Often displays designed to control expensive military equipment are specialized and abstract, where the only way to fully understand the display and controls is if you were to go through some sort of training or course on the subject. Raytheon has decided to go with the simpler, video game-like display for its Patriot missile control.

The company has been working to develop its Warfighter-Machine Interface, the new Patriot missile control display. The interface takes the esoteric display of symbols and lines and converts it into a 3D interface, with radar and open information from sensors.

The new Patriot missile interface is just another tool used to assist soldiers to interpret the battlefield. The Pentagon has been keen on finding a simple way to display information for troops. Companies, such as Microsoft, have also been helping with the Pentagon’s efforts. This comes out as beneficial for companies, since they can also implement their technologies into the consumer market as new products.

C4isrnet.com mentions that Raytheon announced the display upgrade for the Patriot missile this June, however it seems very likely that the company has been working on it for some time. The display will likely be operational with the U.S. Army by the year 2022.