Sunday, August 29, 2010
Shared visions at ITT Night Vision
ITT's new night vision device includes an upgrade that could outfit the goggle for receiving and sending imagery.
Courtesy of ITT
The new model and the current ENVG allow troops to see at night by intensifying light from stars, the moon or outdoor lighting (in green) and by using thermal imaging to detect heat sources.
Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times
ITT Night Vision is the U.S. Army's sole supplier for the enhanced night vision goggle pictured here. The company hopes its latest version of the ENVG will help win a new contract. ITT prohibited photographs of its new model, which ITT says can be outfitted to allow transmission and receipt of images.
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As recounted, ITT Night Vision's latest battlefield technology strays into the domain of what might have qualified as science fiction just a few years ago.
The company's new night vision device incorporates all the high-tech imaging abilities of an existing enhanced night vision goggle, or ENVG, that Roanoke County-based ITT Night Vision sells now to the U.S. Army. But it comes with something more -- an optional digital upgrade that could outfit the goggle for receiving and sending imagery.
Thus, unmanned aircraft could identify what appears to be an enemy's presence and send images to a command center. The center could then transmit the images to U.S. troops in the area. And vice versa -- soldiers in the field could share what they are seeing, enhanced by night vision, thermal imaging or an overlay of both.
ITT hopes the Army's attention will be captured by the combat utility of night vision gear outfitted to transmit and receive digital images. And that such recognition will help the company win all or part of a new supply contract with a potential value of $260 million.
Two other defense contractors submitted competing prototypes for an improved version of the current ENVG.
Optional
For now, ITT emphasizes that the digital upgrade is an optional add-on. Army specifications for a modified ENVG do not reference digital imaging capacity.
Erik Fox is a program manager for ITT Night Vision at its tight-security quarters off Plantation Road, where the company employs nearly 1,500 people. Fox said full use of digital imaging would require a "network-centric" battlefield, which he said is not yet a reality.
The existing goggles feature the well-known capacity to help soldiers see while operating in sparse light. The goggles' image intensification technology amplifies available ambient light to provide soldiers an opportunity, through a sort of greenish glow, to identify possible targets. Light sources can include the moon, stars and surrounding environmental lighting.
The ENVG's thermal infrared imaging helps recognize, via an amber/orange image, anything that emits heat. It allows soldiers to detect potential targets in conditions that include smoke, fog and the complete absence of light.
The device can employ both at once.
New and improved
Now, the Army is considering ITT's latest ENVG, which the company refers to as SENVG (for Spiral Enhanced Night Vision Goggle). The Army is reviewing similar gear submitted by DRS Technologies and L3 Insight Technology.
Under a contract awarded in 2005, ITT remains the sole supplier for the current ENVG. The company has shipped more than 2,400 units of this model and its current agreement with the U.S. Army calls for about 6,500 more. ITT expects to ship the balance by midyear 2012.
ITT's latest goggle, roughly the size of a big man's fist, is smaller but similar in weight to the ENVG. It requires three AA batteries instead of four, a change ITT says will reduce logistical and weight burdens and save the Army an estimated $130 million over the product's life cycle.
Instead of desert tan alone, its exterior hue results from a mixing of the Army's universal camouflage pattern, with colors of foliage green, desert tan and urban gray, meant to better match combat conditions in Afghanistan.
Mostly mum
Because ITT has already submitted SENVG prototypes to the Army, the company agreed to discuss and exhibit, in a limited way, the goggle's attributes. ITT allowed a reporter to briefly handle and peer through the device inside a cramped, darkened, windowless room. It prohibited photographs.
The company does not know what, if any, bells and whistles DRS Technologies, based in New Jersey, or L3 Insight Technology might have added to their competing goggles.
Each company reacted reluctantly when asked.
DRS is a subsidiary of Finemeccanica, headquartered in Italy. New York-based L3 Communications acquired Insight Technology in April.
Terry Murphy is president of DRS' reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition group. The group's primary specialty has been thermal infrared imaging devices.
"We're one of the major thermal weapon sight providers [to the armed forces]," he said.
Murphy declined to say whether the DRS device offers anything beyond the Army's specifications.
"We're not going to discuss other features. But [digital imaging communication] is not a specification of the contract," he said.
Danielle Hoffman, a spokeswoman for Insight Technology, said the company typically does not comment about products submitted in contract competitions. She noted that design modifications can continue after a contract's award.
"There basically are many design phases and upgrades over the life of the contract," Hoffman said. "I think what is best for the war fighter is the priority."
Big money
On. Jan. 5, ITT Corp., an international corporation based in White Plains, N.Y., announced the merger of its Night Vision and Space Systems divisions to form Geospatial Systems, based in Rochester, N.Y.
Corporate officials said the divisions' collaboration could yield products able to communicate with reconnaissance satellites.
Steve Brecken, a Roanoke-based spokesman for Geospatial Systems, said this week that if ITT Night Vision wins all or part of the latest Army contract, production will be in Roanoke County.
In recent years, ITT Night Vision has been awarded multimillion-dollar military contracts as a consequence of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the needs of homeland security and other federal agencies.
In 2005, ITT landed an omnibus supply contract with the Army for night vision products. Its value could total nearly $1.4 billion.
The new ENVG contract would be a separate award. Brecken said ITT Night Vision believes it could handle related production with current employment.
"We run 24/7, with multiple shifts," he said.
ITT anticipates the Army will make contract decisions within 18 months.
Meanwhile, what happens after the inevitable occurs and an enemy someday snaps up an SENVG in battle? Couldn't they replicate the technology, its algorithms, software and components, and use the goggle against U.S. forces?
"Good luck," said Fox. "It would be extremely challenging. We've been doing this for 50 years and it has taken that time and experience to get here."
