NEW DELHI (PTI): The Army is in the process of acquiring 556 Augmented Reality Head Mounted Display (ARHMD) systems, the defence ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

ARHMD is conceived as capability enhancement to Land Based Air Defence Weapon Systems such as the IGLA shoulder-fired Infrared Homing Air Defence Missile System and the ZU 23mm 2B AD Gun System, which will provide the operator with radar and thermal imaging (TI) sight outputs as overlays.

The proposed system intends to enhance the engagement capability during night and conditions of inclement weather and day-time engagements are also intended to be enhanced through increased reaction times, data computation for decision support and integration of the output of TI sight.

"Indian Army is in the process of acquiring niche technology by procuring quantity 556 Augmented Reality Head Mounted Display (ARHMD) systems under Make-II category," the statement said.

After a successful evaluation of vendor responses, a project sanction order (PSO) was issued to six vendors on February 22 to start developing the prototype.

The contract will be placed with one of the firms after a successful development of the prototype in accordance with the provisions of the "buy" (Indian-IDDM) category of DAP 2020.

In another statement, the ministry said a contract for the construction of eight Missile-cum-Ammunition (MCA) barges has been concluded with M/s SECON, Visakhapatnam on February 19.

The delivery of the barges is scheduled to commence from July 2022. The MCA barges will be inducted in the Indian Navy to undertake the mission needs for embarking or disembarking missile, gunnery and ASW ammunition, the statement added.