Beyond the Night

Previously, Milton served in the Pentagon as the deputy assistant secretary for research and technology, chief scientist of the Army in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army, research, development and acquisition. He was responsible for the Army’s entire science and technology program spanning 21 laboratories and research, development and engineering centers, with approximately 10,000 scientists/engineers and an annual budget of $1.4 billion. He was also the principal scientific adviser to the secretary of the Army and the assistant secretary of the Army for research, development and acquisition.

Milton was interviewed by MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly.

Q: What is the mission of the Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate, also known as the Night Vision Laboratory?

A: Our mission is research and development associated with advanced sensors for DoD. We are an Army laboratory focused on applied research, advanced development and manufacturing technology. In conventional times, we transition technology to the system program managers for programs of record, but during wartime we have the additional responsibility to get rapid prototypes directly to the field. The technologies that we focus on are electro-optics and infrared, and the smaller battlefield lasers. The primary missions are ISR and RSTA from surveillance to target acquisition.

We also have counter-mine, counter- IED and humanitarian de-mining missions. In that case, we are technology- agnostic, applying all technologies that might be relevant to finding those threats. A new area for us has been force protection, particularly the part that deals with border surveillance and perimeter defense. We also have an effort in night operations—driving and pilotage—as well as laser countermeasures, and a small effort in camouflage, concealment and deception, or signature reduction. We do a certain amount of sensor fusion, but I would emphasize that we are not an electronic warfare organization. We don’t build any communications networks, although we prepare sensor data for those networks.

Q: Can you review the history and accomplishments of the directorate?

A: We’ve been here since the 1950s, so this is not a new lab. The sensors we deal with are infrared imagers or FLIRS, lowlight- level image-intensification sensors, small lasers, uncooled infrared, hyperspectral systems and visible cameras. In those areas, we have a long history and proud legacy. The image-intensification work developed here basically forms the basis for our night vision capability: goggles and rifle-sights, allowing our forces to fight at night. We have many systems deployed, and the Army is one of the few in the world that has given goggles to every infantryman. There have been many generations of goggle technology, and each time it gets better and more sensitive, with better cosmetics and better operations in terms of reduced blooming from bright lights.

We’ve moved on from that to infrared imaging, where we’re looking for heat signatures instead of amplifying starlight and moonlight. Those infrared imagers, known as forward-looking infrared [FLIR], has become the sensor of choice day or night for most of our combat platforms, such as tanks, Bradleys and Apaches. We’ve been through several generations of these in terms of improving technology. We gained lots of advantages there, not just for longerrange and nighttime targeting, but also for daytime operations, smoke and dust penetration with excellent target-tobackground contrast. Most of the time now, when someone pulls a trigger in a direct-fire mode, he is looking through a FLIR.

In the last five or six years, we’ve had a very important development in infrared in terms of uncooled detector technology, or uncooled infrared. This has allowed infrared imagers to be much smaller, lighter and cheaper with lower power consumption and instant turnon. This enables individual soldiers and small UAVs to take advantage of this technology, and the proliferation of IR imagers on the battlefield is, in our view, a revolution in its own right. We’ve done quite a bit of work in battlefield lasers as range finders, designators and illuminators, making them smaller, lighter and cheaper. That’s very important for smaller UAVs and dismounted infantry.

Also, we’ve developed technology in the counter-mine area, in terms of detection technology and some neutralization efforts. Lots of handheld mine detectors have been fielded, and we now are fielding vehicle-mounted units. In this case, there have been some very significant challenges associated with the conversion from metal to plastic mines, and the introduction of man-in-the-loop IED technology. It’s been a struggle to keep up with the threats, but we’ve made considerable progress. We also develop humanitarian de-mining technology, which involves clearing up after combat and is part of “soft power” for influencing countries without combat.

The night vision and IR systems are very popular technologies with the military, with a real influence on the battlefield as war-winning technologies. They made quite a bit of difference in the initial invasion of Iraq, when there was a lot of night fighting. Since then, what we’ve shown is that the challenge is often in finding the enemy, and the types of sensors we have developed are often very helpful in that regard. So the emphasis on ISR—and knowing where the enemy is—is becoming more important in the kind of asymmetrical warfare we face.

Q: What are some of your major current programs going on?

A: One of our biggest thrusts is “third generation” FLIR technology, which involves simultaneously obtaining mid-wave and long-wave imagery, so that you can pick the right band for the local conditions. Uncooled infrared, which makes possible the miniaturization of IR cameras, is a major development for the dismounted soldier, both on the rifle and on the head. We’re also working on much smaller range finders and designators, which will be a great advantage for the dismounted soldier and small UAVs.

Q: What are some of your other projects in the area of electronic sensors?

A: One of our emphases here has been to understand sensor suites—the combination of sensors that will make the most difference in an urban environment. The challenges in Iraq have shown that some of our biggest problems have to do with complex terrains and a mixture of hostiles and civilians that you encounter in a city. We’ve worked hard to think about how to use the technology in those environments. Some of our new thrusts include perimeter surveillance, border surveillance and the protection of forward operating bases. That involves system of systems of tower-mounted and unattended ground sensors—technology that allows one man to do the job of a number of sentries. It’s a tremendous force-multiplier in terms of what a small group of troops can do.

Another area is human signature exploitation, which involves several different aspects, the most important being trying to understand what it takes to differentiate between a hostile and a nonhostile person. That’s the continuing challenge of asymmetric warfare. What does it take to know that someone is carrying a weapon in terms of resolution and detection technology? How do you identify hostile intent, or determine if someone has a bomb under his coat?

Q: What can be done to help manage the flood of information provided by the growing number of sensors?

A: We’ve had significant efforts in the area of automatic and aided target detection and recognition—technology that helps find the target without just relying on human interpretation. These are often cueing systems that look for motion, for example, or change detection. There is also shape recognition of targets, or multispectral effects to break the target out from the background. From a network perspective, the data compression that has to occur at the sensors is important. That can involve identifying part of an image to send along, rather than the entire image, for example. This is particularly important in terms of persistent surveillance, where we have tremendous amounts of data collected. With a human observer you can’t look everywhere all the time, so you need some way to sort that out and cue operators to look in certain areas—is there something new in that image? The use of some form of moving target indication and change detection in the optical domain is a new area for us, although it has long been a staple of Doppler systems in radar. But it’s new in terms of video imagery, and I think very powerful.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: The exciting thing is that EO/IR technology has been improving very rapidly, both in terms of detector technology and in moving into different wavelength bands such as short wave infrared, the wavelength between the near IR I2 band and the mid-wave IR. The opportunities for improved systems are very evident to us, and the challenges of finding the target are very much a part of asymmetric warfare. So there’s a lot of leverage to be gained. ♦

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