Army Introduces New Night Vision Goggles.

• Author: Lee, Connie
• Position: Small Unit Dominance

* The Army is bolstering its night vision capabilities to increase the maneuverability and situational awareness of soldiers by improving upon a legacy system, according to service officials.

The third iteration of the enhanced night vision goggles--or ENVG--is slated for fielding between May and June 2018.

The goggles will help soldiers operate in multiple environments, while improving upon its predecessors by wirelessly linking the system to the Family of Weapon Sights-Individual, a device that can be mounted onto a rifle. DRS Technologies and BAE Systems are contractors for the program.

Lt. Col. Anthony Douglas, product manager for soldier maneuver sensors at program executive office soldier, said this connection allows the soldier to see what the rifle is pointing at through the goggles.

"If you're under fire, you can maintain your position behind cover or a barrier," he said. "You could... target what is around you without having to expose your body to hostile fire." The first ENVG product was delivered in 2008 and the service began work on the third iteration in 2014, he noted.

When looking through the goggles, a soldier sees the view from the rifle in a 19-degree bubble that overlaps the main image, he said. That allows the soldier to "shoot from the hip," he added.

Maj. Kevin Smith, assistant product manager for soldier maneuver sensors, said the ENVG III has already undergone operational examinations. The Army performed reliability growth testing on the goggles in February 2017, and had the 4th Infantry Division test both the ENVG III and the FWS-I in May 2017. Soldiers highlighted the thermal image as a particularly useful feature, as they were able to see through smoke, he noted.

Thomas Bowman, director of ground combat systems at the Army's Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, said that the ENVG equipment is an improvement over the Army's standard PVS-14 monocular night vision device, which uses a method called [i.sup.2], or image intensifying, to amplify ambient light. This means the device is limited in low-constrast environments, he noted.

The ENVG series of goggles fuses the [i.sup.2] technology with a thermal camera that provides the soldier with the option to examine his surroundings for heat signatures, he explained.

Jorge Concepcion, a program officer at PEO soldier, said combining the two...