Lockheed Martin
The specific control panel for the high-tech sensors that replaced conventional periscopes would have cost around $38,000. An Xbox 360 controller costs 30 dollars, has the same effect… and the crew doesn’t even need to train to know how to use them.
Military submarines are extremely complex vehicles. Each submarine uses a set of techniques to hide from enemy sonar, and nuclear-powered submarines can remain submerged for months, producing their own oxygen.
For this reason, they require more pressure gauges and buttons than most marine vessels. These control systems require funding and training, so the Navy decided save time and money, using a video game controller to manage the modern equivalent of the periscope.
In 2018, the US officially welcomed the USS Colorado into active service. The ship was the 15th Virginia-class submarine built for the Navy, but unlike its predecessors, the Colorado does not use traditional controls to operate its two photonic masts — high-tech sensors that have replaced conventional periscopes.
The Navy then decided to use Xbox controllers and, interestingly, not the new Xbox One at the time, but the older (although more iconic) one. Xbox 360 controller.
The logic behind this decision was twofold. Firstly, the price: Xbox 360 controllers cost the most about 30 dollarswhile a dedicated control panel would have cost around $38,000.
The Navy also opted for this command because many of the crew members already had experience using it. The reasoning was that this prior knowledge would reduce training time from hours to minutes — roughly the same amount of time most gamers need to master the control schemes of new games.
The command also It’s not that bulky or that heavy what the original photonic mast controls would have been like. The Navy went ahead and adopted this Xbox 360 control scheme on subsequent Virginia-class submarines, including the USS Indiana.
The idea of replacing intrusive controls with Xbox controllers it didn’t come out of nowhere. The original concept was born in the testing laboratory known as “” (not to be confused with Area 51 in Nevada), where Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Navy tested commercial software and hardware and their applications on Virginia-class submarines.
Researchers have experimented with all sorts of control schemes, including tablets, touch tables and even Microsoft Kinect — possibly one of the most ingenious uses for an end-of-life Kinect.
The laboratory’s motto was simple: “How can we integrate something that already works?” Therefore, they opted for equipment that has already been part of life of many modern soldiers.
However, it cannot be said that using an old Xbox controller in a piece of military technology is an innovative idea; The US Army also uses Xbox 360 controllers to pilot Small Unmanned Ground Vehicles (in SUGVs) and even drones. However, with the rise of autonomous dronesthe question remains: how much time do these devices have left?
