Full Color Night Vision For Soldiers
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עברית (Hebrew)
The United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has been planning on increasing the lethality and capabilities of its soldiers during night time missions. A special request from the command details its intent of experimenting on enhancing the soldier’s Night Vision Electro-Optics capabilities through new technology, what the command is dubbing the “True Color Night Vision and Fused Imagery Sensors.”
SOCOM is looking for technology that offers soldiers “true color” night vision, meaning night vision that can be viewed in full color, in contrast to the traditional green or white night vision view.
The ideal technology will utilize several night vision capabilities so that it can present and capture video and images of the visible spectrum, infrared spectrum, near infrared spectrum, and medium infrared spectrum.
“Target discrimination during obscured conditions (smoke, ash, snow, fog, rain, etc.) day or night is of interest,” the request notes. “A capability that allows true color at higher illumination and switch or transition to black and white at the lowest illumination is of interest.”
The request further states that technology that can permit target identification from 10 kilometers away is also of interest.
The United States military has been pushing for similar technology for nearly 30 years. Only recently have companies managed to progress and achieve practical applications in the field.
For example, Taskandpurpose.com mentions the X27 Osprey full motion video camera. The camera shows off a relatively good idea of how the military envision full color night vision to be.
The military believes that the adoption of true color night vision technology could be a game changer for the United States Special Operations Command. True color could significantly benefit soldiers with target discrimination, target engagement, combat identification, and identifying friend or foe, not to mention increasing the soldier’s situational awareness.
