The Digital Fusion Goggle (DFG) is a dual-band, helmet-mounted device that provides enhanced vision in environments that are completely dark and/or high in obscurants by fusing image intensification (I2) and long-wave infrared thermal imagery, NVESD officials say. One aim of image fusion is to integrate the image a soldier gets from his night-vision goggles with one generated from an uncooled thermal imager on his helmet.įusing the image would help the solider perform maneuvers at night in hostile terrain such as a dense forest, Ratches says. Image fusion seeks to blend crucial imaging data from image intensifiers and thermal imagers. They are prevalent in applications, however, where cooled devices are not necessary, such as man-portable operations. Uncooled imagers are less expensive and come in smaller packages than thermal imagers they do not need a cooling device, yet are not as efficient as cooled devices. "Users want the long range and high resolution afforded by cooled systems, but not the maintenance issues associated with them."
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"The major technology issue facing infrared designers today is how to get the system performance of a cooled IR sensor into an uncooled sensor," says John Hodge, ground systems sales manager for FLIR systems in Billerica, Mass. Small, palm-size uncooled thermal imagers have recently become available. Current uncooled research aims at small packages, power consumption, affordable costs, increased sensitivity, sharp resolution, and wide field of view, NVESD officials say. NVESDS scientists who specialize in cooled thermal imaging are pursuing multispectral imaging, improved sensitivity and resolution, and embedded signal processing to aid the soldier in target acquisition.
Uncooled thermal imagers, which are not so sensitive as cooled devices, require no detector cooling but are sufficient for individual soldier sights, infantry vehicles, navigation, robotics, and missile seekers, NVESD officials say.
Cooled thermal imaging requires cryogenic cooling. Thermal imagers come in cooled and uncooled varieties. Thermal imagers do not rely on reflected ambient light, and have significant penetration capabilities through obscurants such as fog, haze, and battlefield smoke. Thermal imagers or forward-looking infrared (FLIR) viewers gather the infrared radiation and form an electronic image for the soldier. Most objects in natural scenes, as well as human beings and man-made objects, emit electromagnetic radiation in the form of heat. NVESD researchers are working on image intensifiers with longer-wavelength spectral response, higher sensitivity, larger fields of view, and increased resolution relative to existing image intensifiers, as well as with advanced displays and image fusion. The main advantages of image intensifiers as night-vision devices are their small sizes, light weight, low power requirements, and low cost, NVESD officials say. This ambient light comes from the stars, moon, or sky glow from distant manmade sources such as cities. Image intensifiers capture ambient light and amplify it thousands of times by electronic means to display the battlefield to a soldier via a phosphor display such as night-vision goggles, according to NVESD officials. The two existing types of night-vision technologies are image intensifiers and thermal imagers. Ratches and the engineers and scientists at NVESD have discovered ways to capture available electromagnetic radiation outside that portion of the spectrum visible to the human eye, and have developed equipment to enable the American soldier to fight as well at night as he can during the day, NVESD officials say.
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