During World War II, American and
British soldiers weren’t always able to take full advantage of
being allies. Ammunition used by one army wouldn’t always fit the
weapons of the other. Screws from a British tank wouldn’t fit an
American M4 Sherman. After WWII, these same militaries learned their
lessons and worked together to create common equipment and technical
standards for performance and maintenance purposes. This effort led
to groups of hierarchical standards referred to as MILSPEC in the
U.S.
By the 1980s, however, the tail wagged
the dog. Defense contractors had to comply with upwards of 30,000
MILSPEC standards to ensure maximum interoperability across armed
forces and military platforms. But interoperability came with high
costs and long delays as contractors struggled to make sure they
complied with every relevant standard. Defense budgets exploded, and
under significant criticism, Secretary of Defense William Perry
issued the “Perry Memo” in 1994. The memo eliminated the need to
require MILSPEC compliance unless the issuing governmental agency
sought and received a waiver. Standards that once demanded mandatory
compliance now precluded compliance, preferring the cost savings of
industrial standards from groups such as ANSI, ISO, SAE, and others.
Like many support industries, machine
vision benefited from military support of commercial standards,
allowing smaller companies to compete for defense contracts denied
them in the past because of costly regulatory requirements. Today,
whenever they can, militaries around the globe turn to commercial
standards for imaging and electronics, which, in turn, allow
commercial markets to benefit from military technological advances.
While unique military requirements always will demand customization
for certain systems, the machine vision and broader imaging market
continue to benefit from the shift away from MILSPEC to commercial
standards.
When One Camera’s Much Like
Another (HOW ABOUT ‘A Camera Like all Others’?)
Recent market reports from infrared
imaging specialists Maxtech International Inc. and Yole Développement
reveal how commercial markets have benefited from military industry
support. From 2013 to 2018, Yole Développement expects the overall
infrared camera market to grow by 23 percent, with more than 20
percent of that growth coming from commercial markets (see photo).
What are the commercial applications driving that growth? They are
many of the same markets responsible for the growth of visible
sensors used in machine vision cameras: automotive, Global uncooled
thermal camera business (in units)surveillance, thermography, and the
emerging night-vision smartphone market. Just as the growth in
personal computers drove down the cost of processing data, which
benefited the machine vision market, the growth in imaging sensor
sales volume and sensor performance also will benefit
machine vision system producers and consumers.
But just because the MILSPEC sensor has
mostly gone the way of the dodo, and market reports reveal that
military spending represents a smaller percentage of the overall
imaging market each year, that does not mean the military’s use of
imaging is dwindling. In fact, cameras have become ubiquitous within
the military, mounted on everything from traditional armored
platforms to the common infantryman.
NorPix Inc. (Montreal, Quebec, Canada),
provider of high-speed digital video recording software and
solutions, sells more and more imaging software to the military each
year. “They’re primarily using it for research,” says NorPix
President Luc Nocente. “Obviously, they rarely tell me what they’re
doing with it, but we’re selling it to all of the armed forces. The
military tends to work with a lot of different types of cameras. And
our software works with any camera with any interface: USB, GigE,
Camera Link, analog, compressed, uncompressed … we support them
all. Our software also takes in other sensor data, such as IRIG
military time stamping and GPS data protocols. So they can acquire
images from multiple cameras, each with its own output, overlay
location and time data, and store it on any device they like –
solid state drives, standard hard drives, whatever. In the past,
they’ve done everything from record video from cameras placed
around ground vehicles to managing de-icing on plane wings.”
This ability to work with many
different types of interfaces also has boosted the appeal of
companies like Pleora Technologies (Kanata, Ontario, Canada), a
supplier of high-speed video interfaces for military, medical, and
automation. Pleora provides a variety of electronics for converting
Camera Link, analog, and other camera outputs to GigE.
“Military vehicles are very concerned
about size, weight, and power,” says John Phillips, senior manager,
product management for Pleora. “The difference in weight between
coax cable versus Cat 5 or 6 is only a few ounces per yard – a
minimal amount. But when you have miles of coax running through your
vehicle, it adds up. So the less weight, the more armor and speed.”
Small Solutions, Custom Solutions
When it comes to putting imaging
systems on the smallest of platforms – from soldiers to mini-drones
– only custom vision solutions will do. For example, Imaging
Solutions Group (Rochester, N.Y.) is part of the General Dynamics
team competing for DARPA’s One Shot XG program.
Military snipers may get only one
chance to hit their target. That’s why the One Shot program seeks
to enable snipers to accurately hit targets with the first round,
under crosswind conditions, day or night, at the maximum effective
range of the weapon. To achieve this, the One Shot system provides a
measured profile of downrange crosswind and range to target. This
information is then used to compensate the bullet trajectory to
offset crosswind effects and range-related bullet deviations,
substantially increasing the probability of a first-shot hit.
“The ISG Imaging System we designed
contained a CPU, FPGA, memory, and interfaces to all the various
sensors in the system,” says Kerry Van Iseghem, co-founder of
Imaging Solutions Group. “The system takes the inputs from all the
environmental sensors and uses them to calculate the proper settings
to recreate a new ’target’ that the sniper soldier could aim at
to hit the intended target. The system is totally contained and
manages all aspects of the product.”
The program completed Phase 2E in
spring 2013 to reduce system size, weight, and power as well as
extend the engagement range. The Phase 2E system will mount on a
conventional spotting scope. The next-generation One Shot envisions a
compact observation, measurement, and ballistic calculation system
mountable on either the weapon or spotting scope. The developed
system will measure all relevant physical phenomena that influence
the ballistic trajectory and rapidly calculate and display the offset
aim point and confidence metric in the shooter’s riflescope in
either day or night conditions. The XG system seeks to exploit new
technologies to operate over a range of visibilities, atmospheric
turbulence, scintillation, and environmental conditions. One Shot XG
Phase 2 began in March 2013 and is expected to be complete in Spring
2014.
Economic uncertainty and decreasing
military budgets could pose a problem for the developers of imaging
technology as defense markets account for a shrinking slice of the
overall performance imaging market. However, as the military
continues to adopt commercial standards while expanding the number of
platforms that use imaging systems and supporting the development and
transfer of advanced imaging technology,
machine vision system companies can
expect their role in protecting people from aggression will continue
to grow in both overall market terms and the number of market
participants.
Menzel Vision & Robotics Pvt Ltd
Address: 4, A-Wing, Bezzola Complex,
Sion Trombay Road, Chembur
400071 Mumbai, India
Tel:(+91) 22 67993158
Fax: (+91) 22 67993159
Mobile:+91 9323786005 / 9820143131
E-mail: info@mvrpl.com
