Night Vision Sensor Technology to Suit User’s Needs

Since the start of use of night vision equipment, the evolution of the technology has followed the trend provided by governments and geopolitics. Over the last decade, military doctrines changed drastically and reinforced considerably the benefits of use of night vision equipment. Indeed night vision fight capability became a “must have” on the field. This is now one of the key elements for armies to overcome threats or at least to avoid capacity disadvantage in front of fully equipped armies.

Recent conflicts have altered traditional views on combat though, reducing the emphasis on the battlefield, and placing a greater importance on the role of the individual soldier. In modern warfare, individual operations under the cover of darkness underscore the tactical and operational importance of superior night vision capabilities.

As the need for night vision equipment is obvious for the warriors on the field, the question comes to the solution suppliers on how to improve the performance and the efficiency of such devices. The importance of fitness-for-use is crucial.

Incremental improvements on Image Intensifiers (I²) in an era where technology life cycle is getting shorter than its functional life are driving up tubes specifications. Therefore indigenous manufacture of I² tubes is crucial and allows the country to remain independent and ensures its sovereignty in the night vision domain. Through its constant innovation drive, PHOTONIS is a key partner permanently anticipating on user requirements.

Image Intensification Technology by PHOTONIS

To suit a variety of applications facing today’s modern armies, including desert, aviation and urban and under a wide variety of lighting conditions including dynamic lighting, PHOTONIS has been improving direct view technology solutions over the years along the main axis dealing with human perception: Physiological performance (Auto-gating and phosphor adaptation), and increased optronic performances by the introduction of XD-4 and XR5 high performance tubes.

One of the most revolutionary advancements in night vision technology is the XR5 auto-gated filmless tube. In addition to improvements in image resolution and clarity as well as low-light level performance, the XR5 offers Auto-Gating, which allows continuous operation in dynamic light conditions. XR5™ is one of the most recent Image Intensifier Tubes in service in NATO.

Each type of operations requires a different Night Vision Device and Technology

Going deeper into the technology of Image Intensification which is the “engine” of every night vision device, it appears that different types of operation and environments (bear land, lush vegetation, desert, mountainous areas) require different kinds of Night Vision Devices and technology.

The focus of Special Operation Forces for instance is to see without being seen (See First, Act First) which corresponds to an image allowing fast recognition and identification. Meanwhile air platform pilots are facing the threat of suspended electric wires while traveling at high speed and switching from very dark ground scenery to bright urban lights.

Different phosphors for highest performance and image quality in all situations

To meet all these varying needs, PHOTONIS continuously innovates its Image Intensifier Technology focused on the broadband sensitivity and the reaction speed of the phosphor screen, converting electrons into visible photons directly displaying the image to the eye of the warfighter: these various phosphor types are known as P22 (green image for better contrast for ground application/operation), P43 (green-yellow; faster decay time for avionic application) and P45 (black & white image for better detection and identification).  

PHOTONIS is able to provide the different types of phosphor screens to its customers. Depending on the applications and concepts of operations, different colours for I2 tube displays can be used. P22 phosphor displays have the particularity to smoothen the image. Indeed thanks to its decay time of about 7.5ms, the image noise is considerably smoothened. This type of phosphor is very well fitting to ground army as movements are essentially set by head movements. In contrary jetfighter pilots usually prefer P43 based I2 tubes that offer faster image display with the disadvantage of providing noisier images.

Saving warfighter lives with Auto-Gating

When exposed to bright light sources, such as a sudden illumination of a room, explosion or car headlights, the resolution and the contrast of the image will drop severely. A direct result is the temporary “blindness” of the user. The PHOTONIS Auto-Gating function available on the most modern Image Intensifier Tubes fitted in night vision devices was designed to keep the best resolution and contrast at all times. It is particularly critical for Aviator’s Night Vision goggles, operations in urban areas or for special operation Forces. The Auto-Gating principle is a unique feature that maintains the optimum performance of the Image Intensifier Tube, continuously revealing mission critical details, safeguarding the Image Intensifier Tube from damage and protecting the user from temporary blindness.

The benefits of Auto-Gating can easily be seen not only during day-night-day transition, but also under dynamic lighting conditions when rapidly changing from low light to high light (above 1 lx) and allowing war fighters to continuously maintain “eyes on the target”, literally saving their life.

Small halo to match high quality goggles

Using high quality goggles, it became obvious that Image Intensifier technology is needed that generates the smallest halo possible. When operating in dynamic light conditions, night vision images have a tendency to show “halos” around the brightest spots in the scene. For example: street lights or car headlights are typically surrounded by round bright areas, disturbing the overall image quality and ‘whiting out’ part or the entire image. Due to the Auto-Gating principle PHOTONIS Image Intensifier Tubes show very little halo (< 1 mm) and therefore creates the best possible image quality. Turkish Forces can now be equipped with the most advanced Image Intensifier technology matching the high quality goggles available from the industry.