Would you believe 71%?
Simplifying the Small Arms Video Sight
Carl Zeiss Optronics GmbH is acquiring a 70% interest in Denel Optronics, which is owned by the state-owned defense group Denel Pty. Ltd. and is currently undergoing partial privatization. The German company and Denel Optronics have collaborated closely on technology for a number of years.
The new enhanced version of the German future soldier system, IdZ-ES (Infanteristen der Zukunft) is increasing the number of infrared sights to be provided to soldiers. Earlier this year The German MoD’s BWB procurement agency awarded the prime contract for an enhanced version of IdZ to prime contractor Rheinmetall.
Infrared sights for future soldier systems in several European countries are moving ahead rapidly after initially being delayed due to the lack of available uncooled focal plane arrays.
Researchers at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, ARL, in cooperation with Rockwell Scientific Corp. are making significant progress toward being able to fabricate MCT (mercury cadmium telluride) FPAs by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) directly on composite silicon substrates. Recently, they succeeded in making 256 x 256 pixel LWIR MCT FPAs (40 µm pitch) on silicon substrates having a lattice-matched CdSeTe buffer layer. Initial results indicate an NETD of 33 mK for a cut-off wavelength of 10 µm. Operability (fraction of usable pixels) was measured to be 99%.
Researchers from the Army Research Laboratory, ARL are teaming with BAE Systems under the Advanced Sensor Collaborative Technology Alliance (CTA) program to make mid-wave Type II Superlattice (T2SL) focal plane arrays. The semiconductor layers (InAs on a GaSb substrate) were grown by ARL and the FPA processing and hybridization to an Indigo ISC9809 read-out IC (ROIC) were carried out at BAE Systems.