Night vision gear gave U.S. forces a huge leg up in the first Gulf War. But these days, anyone can buy see-in-the-dark goggles for a few hundred bucks, online.
So military research labs [are] push[ing] to give U.S. war fighters nighttime optics that are several steps ahead of what can be bought at any hunting and fishing store, or duplicated by foreign militaries,” National Defense magazine notes.
At the top of the want list is a system that fuses both ‘image enhancement,’ which relies on ambient light, and infrared capabilities.
Infrared does not rely on ambient light, as does image enhancement, which emits the technologys characteristic green glow. Laying infrared over the image will help operators see camouflaged targets and give them better contrast, experts said. If you turn on that fused system, the red will pop out at you, and you can react very quickly, said Elizabeth Redden, chief of the human research and engineering directorate field element at the U.S. Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga.
However, military researchers are grappling with several challenges to create this fusion. Helicopter pilots, for example, cannot use infrared sensors through windshields, noted Chief Warrant Officer Wade Fox, an adviser to the night vision devices branch at the Army 110th aviation brigade, Fort Rucker, Ala. A fused system is really where we want to go.
Such a system could still be used by crewmembers like door gunners who can stick their heads outside windows. For pilots, an infrared sensor could be mounted outside the cockpit, and the imaged fused on a helmet-mounted device. However, external cameras can create distortion caused by viewing the same object from two different angles, also known as a parallax effect, which makes it difficult to maneuver.
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Not a word about DARPA IXO’s MANTIS program…
http://dtsn.darpa.mil/ixo/programs.asp?id=124
Multispectral Adaptive Networked Tatical Imaging System (MANTIS)
Program Manager: Jeffrey Paul
The goal of the Multispectral Adaptive Networked Tactical Imaging System – MANTIS program is to demonstrate a visualization system to regain the nighttime advantage for the individual soldier and provide unprecedented situational awareness. MANTIS consists of:
1. a head-mounted, multispectral sensor suite (Vis/ NIR/SWIR/LWIR), digital display and an inertial navigation system, and
2. a body-worn processor and power supply, to digitize, process, and display fused imagery, augmented reality and battlefi eld information in real time. MANTIS will provide small units with network-enabled, collaborative visualization for soldier-to-soldier image sharing, access to remote sensors and targeting handoff to off-board weapons, allowing the soldier to point, click and Kill.