Get a look at Elbit’s enhanced binocular night vision goggles

Welcome back to Defense News Weekly. The ability to own the night has long been a specialty of the U.S. military, but new advances have made seeing in low light or obscured conditions better in recent years, potentially creating an even greater advantage

We visited Elbit America to see new solutions they're working on to improve night vision. Check it out

So we're here at Elbon America to look at some night vision devices

Henry, tell us a little bit about what we see in front of us. Alright, so what you got in front of you is the enhanced night vision goggle binocular

and PSQ44, comprised of four main components. You got your night vision viewer, positioning assembly binocular, universal helmet mount

assembly and the battery pack. Clip it all together. Powered by four L91 lithium AA batteries

And now you have one of the most advanced night vision products available on the market today

Contains two high performance image intensifiers. One 640x480 thermal imager. optically fused so that the viewer is able to see both thermal and image

intensified imagery simultaneously. This is a squad binocular night vision goggle fielded by the US Marine Corps. Both systems share some common traits

Both are image intensified binoculars, both have sidestow capability, both share the same tube type and both have thermal imagers. The enhanced night vision

goggle binocular in addition to an all-weather day or night thermal imager

and your tubes also has intra-soldier wireless capability so you can link in

let's say drone feeds okay vehicle camera feeds thermal thermal image from

your weapon site feeds all in the user eye the squad binocular night vision goggle SPMBG for short has an external clip thermal imager Econi Its image is projected into the image intensified tube

Native fusing means I have a camera and inside I have your classic image intensifier night

vision tube. The thermal image is projected on a display inside and it is actually combined in a beam

combiner prism. There's two images that the user sees it in their eye simultaneously or they can

see them independently. So the night vision in the ENVG Bravo has different settings now we'll see a

little sample of that but can you describe what we're seeing if we switch between the settings on the device? Sure so if you're looking at a scene you have three options you have white hot so hotter

objects or appear brighter you have black hot or hotter objects actually appear darker and then you

have outline. Outline is cool. Outline actually shows you, like if you're looking at a person

you'll see their outline, but you won't see them as a big white blob. Most users when walking around

they use outline. Outline is the most useful because nature doesn't do straight lines

If you ever notice this, nature never does straight lines. In the thermal, straight lines

in outline, they pop out immediately. One of the things that's really a great feature about this

like you said, is that capability of having it all be able to transfer back and forth to the

goggle from one device. It also has its own power supply. Can you talk a little bit about

kind of how this thing is powered, how long it can last, and kind of how all this fits together? Sure, I can do that. So power is provided from the battery pack by four lithium batteries

You can buy these on the shelf. Depending on your operating mode, operating life is anywhere

between four hours and ten hours. Depends on how many of the features you use. It's kind of like

your car. The faster you drive it, the faster you burn gas, right? Same is true for the goggle

So I understand that has a lot of great capabilities with just a few batteries, but what can this device do with the battery power it has

Okay, the one battery it has on the bridge can run the two tubes in the binocular for 20 hours

The CR123 cell it has in the e can run the e for three hours It also has an external battery pack available that can extend the run life of the e and the binocular So we have some advanced features on the EMVG compared to this device but both these devices are new and being used What about the say the PVS or the older devices that people

are currently carrying? What kind of features does this have that that does not? Okay, so PVS-14 is a binocular night vision device. It's probably the most ubiquitous night

vision device in the world. This gives you two big advantages right off the bat. Two tubes means

you get binocular vision. You get depth perception and low light. You also gain

your thermal imager. Thermal imager breaks camouflage. It means if a guy's wearing digis

and he's hiding in a tree and you can't see him with night vision, thermal imager will

pop out. He'll be the only thing you see. The EMGB also gives you wireless connectivity

That's critical. The things you see where people shoot around corners, yeah, that's real. EMGB

enables that capability. Okay, EMGP enables drone feeds, it enables augmented reality, what we call augmented reality

AR is navigation. So when you're doing land-nav, you're walking around, you're not stopping, looking down at your map

having to shine a light, no, no, no. It's in your eye. You see it the whole time

Full situational awareness of the battlefield, you can do blue force tracking

so you know where all your squad mates are in real time. So you can see more than just what's in front of you

You can see feeds coming from other places. also see more detail and depth on the terrain you're featuring. And as you said, you can break

up camouflage and see people that otherwise could hide from you. Absolutely. And what about the

durability? Obviously, you know, Marines are going to get, they're going to get wet. You know, it's going to be, it's going to be, you know, maritime environment. You know, soldiers are

going to get wet and cold too, and the heat. Does this, can this operate in like extreme temperatures of heat or cold? Absolutely. Both systems can operate between minus

minus 40 Fahrenheit all the way up to, let's say 49 degrees C, whatever that, it's hot

That's midday Fallujah hot. Okay. Doesn't bother. They work fine no matter the temperature

Immersion. Enhanced night vision goggle binocular is rated for one meter of powered immersion

And we test it on every glot we sell. The SBMG the goggle itself is rated for 20 meters Like frogman depths Okay The Ikati itself is not rated for nearly as deep but thermal doesn work underwater anyway

so you're not using it there. It'll be in your dive bag. Now I know the Army is specifically, the Marine Corps as well, very interested in what they

like to call modular, being able to upgrade systems without replacing the whole thing

Now obviously you guys are talking about design changes that can work over time, and you can work with those with the customer

As far as software, anything you can kind of plug in, plug out? So, basically you..

So, talk about that for you. Yeah, so first of all, battery pack clips on, right

I want to upgrade this. I don't want to have to send this whole kit back

This battery pack can be completely disassembled by Ford maintenance. We have demonstrated that

The brain in it is upgradable. We have to work out a program with the Army to be able to do that, but absolutely if they

say we want to enhance the capability for a good example. They wanted to add a weapons light reticle, a type that they hadn't had before

They called us up and said, hey can you do this? We said, yeah, give us three weeks, no problem

Added it, range tested it, works great, Army says, I want that, put it in there

A month later, boom, rolled out, just like that. Alright, now you talk about enhancements in the goggle

This I'm particularly proud of. Each of these monoculars, where you have your night vision tubes, they're held on by four screws

That's it. I take those four screws out, I can take that off there

It's great for serviceability, great for maintainability, but it's also great for upgradeability

to your point. Let's say I have a completely new night vision device type, and I say, this thing is awesome

better than any tube ever built. I want to change it out

All we've got to do, we build these up in the factory, it's nice, as you can see, it's nice and clean, we can align it, bolt it on

It's plug and play, rock and roll. Same for this monocular with thermal camera

Let's say there's some great new thermal imager technology comes out, right

We design a monocular that bolts up to this interface, four bolts, pop this one off, pop

your new one on, bolt it on, plug and play, rock and roll. It's that easy

Five minutes, you're done