DARPA has awarded DRS Technologies a contract to enhance the performance of the company's ultra-small, pixel-infrared focal plane arrays (FPA).
Improved FPAs will better enable pilots to see in poor visibility.
"DRS continues to develop innovative ways to increase pixel count in cooled and uncooled infrared sensors to bring our customer a significant advantage in the field," said Shawn Black, vice president DRS's Infrared Sensors & Systems division. "This new process opens the door to revolutionary advances in the design of infrared imaging systems of the future. These are substantial improvements in infrared sensor capability for mission-critical applications, such as the degraded visual environments that helicopters experience, where image quality and clarity could prove to be critical to the safety of our helicopter pilots and crewmembers."
The value of the contract, which was awarded under DARPA's Lambda Scale sensor program, was not specified. But a DRS news release did state that the "DARPA-funded Lambda Scale program is focused on the ground-breaking reduction in traditional infrared detector pixel pitches to help reduce the size, weight and power of systems, including handheld sights and distributed aviation sensors for situational awareness."
