USSOCOM publishes TALOS wish list

US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is seeking technologies from industry to accelerate the delivery of innovative Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) capabilities to SOF.

TALOS is an overarching project that aims to drastically improve the dismounted operator’s survivability and capability.

Under a Broad Agency Announcement published in December, USSOCOM detailed the technology focus areas it is seeking for TALOS from industry, academia, individuals, and government organizations; including survivability, exoskeleton platform, operator interface, visual augmentation systems, situational awareness, targeting, mission planning and execution, C4I, power and energy, and human factors.

For survivability, TALOS seeks to design and develop materials, devices, systems, and/or structures to support next-generation ballistic, blast, and whole-body protection. The technology should minimize weight and bulk, while providing protection against advanced rifle rounds. Transparent ballistic materials suitable for use as a helmet visor; fully-enclosed armoured helmet systems; and technologies that provide protection against advanced rifle rounds with additional embedded capabilities such as sensors, transmitters and power transmission are all particular areas of interest.

A unique tactical exoskeleton system is also to be developed. This will augment human strength, increase user capability, and maintain operator mobility while carrying loads in a dynamic, austere environments.

The user will be connected with his environment through enhanced situational awareness presented via multiple senses, including next-generation displays; and robust, modular, high-bandwidth communications with interoperability and compatibility across the SOF mission set and a computing platform will provide integrated, distributed information processing to serve as the central processing solution for TALOS’ integrated systems.

TALOS is also seeking technology related to power generation, power management/ monitoring and energy storage, along with technologies that focus on man-machine pairing.

Responsive organisations must be capable of providing the design, development and testing of the technologies, which must be at Technology Readiness Level three or above.