A new capability called HUD 3.0/IVAS (Head Up Display/Integrated Visual Augmentation System) is on a fast-track to provide greatly enhanced mobility and situational awareness to Soldiers and Marines. The system will feature advanced digital infrared, visible and fused sensors, together with artificial intelligence, live reality and integration with Nett Warrior (an Android-based smartphone.) The system will also have a Synthetic Training capability.
The system is getting funding and attention from the Top at DoD
BAE Systems (Lexington, Massachusetts; Nashua, New Hampshire) is reorganizing its commercial uncooled core business. The responsibility for marketing and sales of uncooled VOx cores is now in Lexington at the location of the company’s uncooled foundry.
FLIR Systems, which has long concentrated on its mature InSb FPA technology has been internally developing Type 2 Superlattice (T2SL) FPAs for use in future products.
The company, which has been part of the VISTA consortium, is making use of the InAs/GaSb epitaxial structures that have been developed by JPL and NRL under the VISTA program and grown by IntelliEPI and IQE. It is expected that the company will soon introduce a camera core based on a HOT MWIR 640 x 512 FPA with 15 micron pixels.Raytheon Vision Systems (Goleta, California) is in the fortunate position of having the largest portfolio of advanced infrared detectors in the world, including mercury cadmium telluride (MCT), InSb, InGaAs, uncooled VOx microbolometers and others. Recently, the company’s III-V T2SL (Type II Superlattice)/nBn detectors have also reached a level of maturity that enabled Raytheon to win the contract for the next-generation Distributed Aperture System (DAS) for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The company has been awarded a Rapid Innovation Fund (RIF) award to develop dualband (MWIR/LWIR) T2SL FPAs for potential use in the 3rd Gen FLIR program. Currently, 3rdGen FLIR development is based on 1280 x 720 dualband MCT FPAs.
Sofradir and Ulis are reorganizing in an effort to make their infrared detector businesses more efficient. In order to do so, the new management team will exploit synergies between the cooled Sofradir operations and the uncooled microbolometer operations of Ulis.
Twelve departments are being set up, among them two new ones: Technology & Strategy and Projects & Programs. All of the departments will be common to both the cooled Sofradir and uncooled Ulis businesses. Previously, the Sofradir and Ulis operations had separate groups handling these functions.
Raytheon will combine its EO/IR technology with Safran's inertial measurement unit technology to develop and manufacture the latest thermal sights. The new systems will allow soldiers to see across long- and mid-wave bands simultaneously and at very long ranges with a stabilized line of sight.
ENVG-B (Enhanced Night Vision Goggle – B), an enhanced version of ENVG III, will work together with the Family of Weapon Sights – Individual (FWS-I) or can be used independently. It will replace ENVG-III.
Raytheon and Lockheed Martin have signed a contract under which Raytheon will provide the next-generation EO-DAS (Electro-optical-Distributed Aperture System) for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The new system will make use of very large format, small pixel MWIR nBn FPAs developed by Raytheon Vision Systems (Goleta, California).
Copious Imaging (Lexington, Massachusetts), a spin-off of MIT Lincoln Labs, intends to transform infrared Read-out Integrated Circuits (ROICs) by not only placing a small low-power analog-to-digital converter at each pixel to form a DROIC (Digital-pixel ROIC) but also provide each pixel with computational capability to produce "Computational Pixel Imagers."
ENVG-B, a binocular version of the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle, is moving rapidly into Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD).
ENVG-B will be similar to ENVG III, fusing images from an image intensifier with those from a microbolometer. However, ENVG-B will have the option to be used as either a fused monocular or as a binocular (ENVG III is monocular only).
Several big Asian companies in video security are releasing new thermal security cameras.