Future Soldier is the overall name given to a multi-nation military project by the United States and its allies launched in the late 1990s. A Future Soldier is also a Soldier who has enlisted in the United States Military, but is delayed in shipping (previously known as "DEP" or Delayed Entry Program). Future Soldier is also name of the major international military exhibition for NATO and Partnership for Peace members.
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Superiority to enemy ground forces will be achieved by equipping the average ground-based combat soldier with an integrated set of high-technology uniforms and equipment. These will be linked to an array of real-time and archived battlefield information resources. Soldiers will require not only enhanced versions of existing equipment (rifle, pistol, knife, helmet, armour, clothing), but also new forms of equipment that will become possible as new types and combinations of technologies become viable for battlefield deployment.
Future Soldier Exhibition is an international exhibition mainly focused on the question of individual components of the "Dismounted Soldier" project, on the results of research, new technologies and materials, concepts and opportunities for international cooperation in the implementation of the integrated system of the soldier of the future and for the securing of the interoperability of its individual components in wartime and peacetime operations. The last Future Soldier Exhibition took place in October 2010 in Prague. The event is organized under the aegis of the National Armaments Director within the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic.
Vital to the success of the project will be the psychological and tactical preparation of ground combat soldiers for using their new capabilities. Various Futuristic Soldier programs are heavily funded and underway around the world, including
Some of the early Future Soldier equipment was tested in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Other more long-term goals relating to exoskeletons, active camouflage and cybernetic enhancements of individual soldiers is unlikely to be achieved for some decades to come due to the relative immaturity of such technology.