Military night-vision goggles the focus of new DARPA, industry, university drive
NewsJanuary 18, 2022
ARLINGTON, Va. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected 10 industry and university research teams for its Enhanced Night Vision in Eyeglass Form (ENVision) program, which will endeavor to develop night vision systems for the military that take advantage of recent advances in planar optics and transduction materials.
Five teams were selected in each of two technical areas: In the first area, teams are developing multiband, wide field-of-vision (FOV) planar optics and planar image intensifiers to demonstrate advanced night-vision systems that are less bulky and heavy and impose near-zero torque on the wearer’s neck, which can impact agility and lead to injury. Teams in the first technical area were chosen from Physical Sciences, Inc.; Raytheon Technologies Research Center; SRI International; University of California at San Diego; and University of Washington.
The second technical area in the ENVision program includes teams from Raytheon BBN; Stanford University; University of Central Florida; University of Melbourne; and University of Pennsylvania. These teams are tasked with exploring innovative methods to amplify photonic up-conversion processes from any infrared band to visible light to enable future “intensifier-free” night-vision systems.
