Britain’s infantrymen are to be turned into high-tech "robo-soldiers" in a 1-billion pounds project to create one of the world's most technologically advanced armies.

The scheme will see the army's traditional helmets, uniforms and rifles scrapped. Instead, soldiers will bristle with gadgets including a gun capable of shooting around corners, a computerised helmet that can download maps, and a whisper-sensitive radio implanted in the ear.

The project will be confirmed next month by the Ministry of Defence. The officer overseeing the project, Lt Col Dave Stewart, said the project, code named Fist (for Future Integrated Soldier Technology), aimed to turn everything a soldier wears or carries into an "integrated fighting system" with every component linked to the rest. The first such kits could be introduced from 2008, with the whole army modernised by 2012.

At its heart will be a computerised gun capable of firing grenades or bullets and equipped with a display screen enabling a soldier to aim it from around corners or over walls without exposing his head or body.

The gun, equipped with laser rangefinders and thermal-imaging equipment, may even have voice controls and a radio link enabling it to be fired remotely from several feet away. The soldier's helmet will include a pull-down visor capable of displaying aerial views of the battlefield with the soldier's position and those of colleagues.

It may be just a high-tech model, but Japanese scientists see the X1 as the forerunner of a superjet which will one day carry three times as many people twice as fast as the Concorde - with only half the noise.

The scientists, sponsored by Japan's government-funded National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL), plan to put the engine-less almost 38-foot long scale model through its paces in a rocket-propelled test in Australia's desert. "It all depends on the weather, because if it's too windy or cloudy we won't be able to proceed for safety reasons," said Peter Nikoloss, an Australian safety operations manager. "We've set aside five days to keep trying in case."

The test will take place at an abandoned British rocket testing range built in the Australian interior in 1947 and operated as a NASA tracking station until 1972.

The scientists, who are keen to have the noise of supersonic flights, will be focusing on the computer-developed aerodynamics of the 10 per cent scale model, which has a wingspan of 15 feet. The X1 looks like a sleeker, sharper version of the British-French Concorde. Its name, X1, is the same as the jet flown by American pilot Chuck Yeager when he became the first person to break the sound barrier in 1947.

The model will piggy-back on an almost 33-foot rocket at 1,522 miles per hour, detaching from the booster 11 miles above the earth and gliding back down at over twice the speed of sound. The test will take a total of 15 minutes.

Designers see the superjets travelling 6,338 miles and carrying 300 passengers, but they do not expect the aircraft to be ready for commercial flights until 2012 at the earliest.

The trial will be the biggest launch in 25 years at the Woomera facility, about 280 miles north of Adelaide.

The research team, which has built on to existing facilities at the site, will monitor the model's maneuverability and aerodynamics using an array of sensors mounted on the hull of the aircraft, "It really is very, very impressive," said Nikoloss.