'Black Art': future night vision devices: more than just goggles.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: Soldier Technology

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The Army is pushing night-vision technologies into the digital realm. Future night-vision goggles are being designed not just to see better at night but also to allow soldiers to share images of what they see with other soldiers who may be miles away.

Technologists agree that the goal is feasible. but contractors currently working on these next-generation goggles are encountering challenges in meeting the Army's requirements for power, size and weight.

The technical difficulties may delay Army plans to award a production contract next year.

Soldiers currently use traditional night-vision technology, called image intensification. These goggles amplify non-visible particles of light to a level of brightness that the human eye can detect. They also employ infrared thermal sensors, which sense temperature differences. Warmer items appear brighter on a display.

The fusion of both technologies would result in night-vision goggles that merge the strengths of image intensification a clear, sharp green-tinted picture with the advantages of infrared -- the ability to see practically under any environmental condition. Green is the color that the human eye sees most easily.

The combination of the two systems into a single optical device resulted in what the Army calls an "enhanced night vision goggle," or ENVG.

The current ENVG, however, is analog, and does not pipe data into the soldier's radio, as the Army wanted.

"We're trying to transition to a digitized version," Army Maj. Theophile Kang, assistant product manager for the ENVG program, tells National Defense. "There's a lot more things you can do with a digitized system that you can't do with an analog system," he says. In cities, for example, streetlights can overwhelm night vision goggles and wash out the image. But if the devices were digital, software could help the system adjust the image, Kang says. The Army has awarded several contracts for the development of digital ENVGs. It plans to evaluate the designs in July to see how the technologies have matured from the previous test last year.

Soldiers will test the goggles in a variety of environments, including in urban training facilities and on woodland patrols.

"You have real soldiers giving you real feedback," says Kang.

The largest provider of night-vision technology to the military, Roanoke, Va.-based ITT Night Vision, manufactures the ENVG for the Army. Engineers there are developing a digital version.

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