Militaries harness optical technologies to minimize casualties and collateral damage in the face of irregular warfare.

On today's network-centric battlefield, unmanned vehicles, satellites, ground vehicles, and warfighters on foot transmit and share information. With so much data at hand, rugged, portable computing devices have become a necessity to keep warfighters up to date.

Hyperspectral imaging sensors for aerospace and defense applications may be somewhat of a novelty today, but the technology's practitioners say hyperspectral components of electro-optical sensor suites are headed for the mainstream-perhaps sooner than we might think.

U.S. Air Force air combat experts are asking engineers at the Lockheed Martin Corp. Missiles and Fire Control segment in Orlando, Fla., to build Sniper Advanced Targeting Pods for the Iraqi air force under terms of a $31.9 million contract.

U.S. Air Force researchers plan to establish a center of excellence for guided-wave infrared sources to conduct and catalog research in infrared waveguides and fibers for low-loss optical transmission, lasers, nonlinear conversion devices, and beam-control devices.

Lockheed Martin Corp. has demonstrated a portable, ground-based military laser system in tests against airborne targets.

Sagem, Thales, and Sofradir officials have signed an agreement for Sofradir to acquire Sagem and Thales' infrared (IR) detector technology development and manufacturing facilities.

U.S. Air Force air combat experts are asking engineers at the Lockheed Martin Corp. Missiles and Fire Control segment in Orlando, Fla., to build Sniper Advanced Targeting Pods for the Iraqi air force under terms of a $31.9 million contract.

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) experts at three U.S. defense companies are developing a new kind of imaging radar technology intended to detect and track moving targets through clouds with the same ability that current infrared targeting systems have in clear weather.

Reconnaissance and surveillance experts at Raytheon Co. Missile Systems in Tucson, Ariz., are helping a U.S. military effort to provide useful, persistent-surveillance imagery on demand to the lowest-echelon warfighter in the field from small low-cost satellites.

Helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland in Amsterdam needed rugged flight recorders for the AW169 twin-engine civil helicopter.

Ground-penetrating radar specialist NIITEK in Dulles, Va., needed a rugged mission computer subsystem for the company's Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Husky Mounted Detection System (HMDS). They found their solution at Parvus Corp. in Salt Lake City.

U.S. Navy underwater weapons experts needed a PC/104-based stackable embedded computer for a prototype torpedo designed by experts at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Newport, R.I. They found their solution at VersaLogic Corp. in Eugene, Ore.

U.S. Navy officials needed large power supplies to keep aging AN/UYQ-21(V) shipboard display systems operational.

The U.S. Army selected the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA's) Wireless Network after Next (WNaN) radios to support the Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) 13.1 experiment at Fort Bliss.

Solid-state storage experts at Pentek Inc. in Upper Saddle River, N.J., needed a rugged chassis for the company's model RTX 2786 Extreme Talon IF digital signal recorder and playback system.

U.S. Air Force officials needed a tool for tactical data link (TDL) testing and simulation.

Crouzet in San Diego is introducing the soundless DCmind Brush range of direct current brush motors for aerospace applications.

Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions is introducing a rugged vetronics networking appliance for armored combat vehicles that is designed to be small, lightweight, and power-efficient.

Phoenix International Systems Inc. in Orange, Calif., is introducing the mission-oriented RPC24 high-performance Fibre Channel RAID data storage subsystem for military and avionics applications.

Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) in Middleton, Wis., is introducing the XPand6104 small-form-factor embedded computing system with a 3rd generation Intel Core i7 microprocessor on a COM Express module for rugged deployed military small-form-factor systems.

Times Microwave Systems in Wallingford, Conn., is introducing the Times-Protect LP-18-400-N series of DC pass RF surge and lightning protection products.

Data Device Corp. (DDC) in Bohemia, N.Y, is introducing the BU-67112 MIL-STD-1553 Express Mezzanine Card (XMC) for mission-critical military and aerospace applications.

Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions is shipping an enhanced version of its MPMC-9335 MPMC for compute-intensive applications, such as image, data, and radar processing in space-, weight-, and power-constrained platforms, such as UAVs and ground vehicles.

Emerson Network Power in Carlsbad, Calif., is introducing the DS800SL-3, an 800-watt, bulk front-end power supply for enterprise servers and similar space-constrained applications.

International Rectifier in El Segundo, Calif., is introducing high-current, ultra-low-dropout (ULDO) radiation-hardened hybrid linear voltage regulators for space applications, such as satellites and launch vehicles.

ADL Embedded Solutions Inc. in San Diego is introducing the ADLN2000PC PCI Express/104 single-board computer for rugged, extended-temperature, and harsh-environment embedded computing applications.

AVX Corp. in Greenville, S.C., is introducing ultra-miniature chip capacitors for RF and microwave communications applications, such as power amplifiers, handheld devices, GPS, vehicle location systems, and matching networks for wireless local area networks (LANs).

Pentek Inc. in Upper Saddle River, N.J., is introducing the model RTR 2727 rugged portable data recorder for military and aerospace applications. The system features recording and playback of IF signals to 700 MHz with signal bandwidths to 200 MHz.

Stealth Computer Inc. in San Jose, Calif., is introducing the WPC-525F fanless rugged waterproof PC for applications in which ordinary computers will not survive, Stealth officials say.

Themis Computer in Fremont, Calif., is introducing its Intel-based RES-Mini rugged computer for mission-critical military, industrial, and commercial applications in environmentally demanding conditions where size, weight, and power (SWAP) optimization is important.

MEN Micro Inc. in Ambler, Pa., is introducing an enhanced version of the company's BC50M rugged box computer for rugged mobile applications, such as aircraft, trains, commercial vehicles, as well as mobile machines and equipment.

Lockheed Martin Corp. acquired Chandler/May Inc., to become part of Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems & Sensors (MS2) business.

The X-47B prototype unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) completed its first catapult launch

U.S. Air Force researchers are choosing embedded computing experts at ITT Exelis Space Computer Corp. in Los Angeles to upgrade sensor processing in the Air Force Airborne Cueing and Exploitation System Hyperspectral (ACES-Hy) side-mounted, persistent-surveillance sensor for the MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Satellite designers at Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) at Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel, needed a space camera for the OPTSAT 3000 observation satellite they are building for the Italian government. They found their solution at Elbit Systems Electro-Optics (Elop) in Haifa, Israel.