Feb 9 2010
Irvine Sensors Corporation (Nasdaq: IRSN) today announced that one of its existing purchase orders with Optics 1, Inc., of Manchester, New Hampshire, an optical systems designer and manufacturer, has been modified to include initial units of Clip-On Thermal Imager ("COTI") systems to be built under a $37.8 million contract recently awarded to Optics 1 by the Naval Surface Warfare Center of Crane, Indiana. The COTIs to be delivered under the new contract are intended for use by special operations forces. Irvine Sensors will be acting as a subcontractor supplying thermal imagers to Optics 1. John Carson, Irvine Sensors CEO, said, "Once the required delivery schedules of the government customer are fully known, we expect that the amount of our subcontract will ultimately exceed $18 million in support of this job."
Irvine Sensors and Optics 1 have been jointly developing the COTI over the last several years under government sponsorship, based on technology originally conceived by Irvine Sensors. The COTI has been designed to clip onto existing military night vision goggles and provide users with thermal images to complement the amplified low-light images that such goggles can currently provide. Such dual capability has been long sought by the military and is intended to both enhance imagery obtainable from the existing night vision goggles as well as providing images in circumstances where physical barriers, atmospheric conditions or lack of light limit the effectiveness of the existing goggles. There are presently about one million night vision goggles in U.S. military inventories that could potentially be retrofitted with the COTI system.
Source: http://www.irvine-sensors.com/