Turning pens into digital combat tools.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: INSIDESCIENCE+TECHNOLOGY

FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZ.--It has been said that the pen is mightier than the sword.

On the battlefield, troops are discovering that it is mightier than the computer.

Picking up a pen to jot notes on paper in many cases is faster and more reliable than booting up a classified laptop to create a document, troops say. But those handwritten notes create problems later when ground units need to share that information with their peers and commanders. Annotations have to be entered into databases, which can take days or weeks to accomplish.

To help solve that ink-to-digital translation hitch, scientists are embedding sensors and processors inside pens to capture what troops write in the field. Increasingly, those technologists are fusing the capability with speech recognition and gesturing so that commanders can literally think out loud and sketch as they make critical decisions.

Adapx, a Seattle-based company, has produced a digital pen solution, based on Anoto technology, that captures a writer's strokes on paper. When that data is uploaded to a computer, the ink markings appear on the digital version of the respective document. The company has integrated its software with a number of programs, including Microsoft Excel, OneNote and the government mapping tool, ArcGIS.

"Pen and paper is now, for all intents and purposes, keyboard and mouse," said Scott find, vice president of sales and engineering.

The pen contains a lens assembly located beneath the ink cartridge. When a soldier starts to write, an infrared imager behind the lens illuminates a 7-millimeter square of the paper, which is covered with miniscule dot patterns specially printed on each sheet. They form mathematically unique patterns, just like a fingerprint, and help the processor correlate the markings to the page. The imager tracks the person's handwriting 75 times per second.

When the writer wants to upload the data, he can connect the pen to the computer or send the information wirelessly via Bluetooth. The company's Capturx software residing within the programs acts as a traffic cop, directing the information to the appropriate document. "The data is automatically converted," said Lind. "It's as if you used a keyboard and mouse or stylus to put the information into the system."

Adapx has partnered with Arlington, Va.-based TerraGo Technologies, which produces software that converts complex military geospatial maps into user-friendly PDF files for portability and sharing purposes.

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