Android is going black beret. With the military always on the lookout for technology that can better aid their fighting forces in the field and the proliferation of out-of-the-box solutions already available in the civilian markets for smartphones, they’re looking to Android to fill the gap. We tune into Cody Hahn at Android Guys, who has a bit of a spiel on the assets that Android can bring to the military,

Special Operations Command, aka SOCOM asked Android developers for some Android applications to keep commandos linked up while on missions. Some of the features desired include chat functions, file transfers (audio,video,images), video display and “white boarding” to assist on missions. SOCOM calls the App division “Tactical Situational Awareness Application Suite”, or TactSA, and it must also work in low-connectivity areas. Do I hear Global Phone?

Instead of doing like the Army and spending time and money custom-building hardware and software, SOCOM being a bit more resourceful (as they must in the field) they use off the shelf devices along with some custom designed apps. Doing this would cut down on the time it would take for hardware development and production to reach the troops.

The reasons given for going Android—instead of with the sleek iPhone—cited that it’s because Android is much more open-source and thus leaves themselves available for post-modification of both software and hardware for military applications. Proprietary systems would take too long to develop and understand, whereas the open nature of Android means that SOCOM programmers can get in, crunch what they need, and then get out again with less fuss.

Already, U.S. ARMY. Defense contractor Raytheon has provided a proof-of-concept Android App that provides real-time imaging for ground forces. The Raytheon Android Tactical System, or RATS, provides a system that connects to unmanned aircraft aerial feeds to provide photos and intel to ground forces down to the smallest detail of terrain and vehicles, such as license plates. Another application of RATS would be to help different units keep track of their locations so that they can deploy themselves more readily across a cluttered landscape.

With all of the software already available for the civilian sector—some of which came out of the military for many applications—the military has a huge jump on development just by taking games, applications, and other ideas and making them combat-useful. We could see Android phones attached to guns for use as navigation, taking/uploading photographs for analysis by far away mainframes, or just general increase in total communication.

Certainly military units would have an easier time deploying themselves if they could receive orders via their smartphone, verify them using heavy authentication/encryption, and then view an overland map along with other expected deployments at the press of a button.

SOCOM + Android, it gives a brand new meaning to the term “Killer App.”