Seeing Photons Progress and Limits of Visible and Infrared Sensor Arrays (2010) / Chapter Skim
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5 The Global Landscape of Detector Technologies
5 The Global Landscape of Detector Technologies
Pages 134-152
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From page 134... ...
First, although evidence may emerge of an advance in some aspect of detector- or sensor system-related technologies, an entity's ability to mature a new technology to producible and deployable states is the ultimate determinant of the utility of that advance. Second, global commercial competition involving detector technologies and sensor systems has become significant.
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From page 135... ...
FIGURE 5-1 Illustrative global infrared detection publication activities.
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From page 136... ...
. FIGURE 5-3 Publications on IR detector technologies from 1980 to 1989 (719 results)
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From page 137... ...
In looking at the data by decade, two noticeable trends are the decrease in the percentage lead of the United States and the dramatic increase of publications originating from the People's Republic of China, from not being in the top ten to a strong third place.
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From page 138... ...
This interconnectivity is represented in Figure 5-6, in which the size of the circle is a representation of the number of joint publications with authors from that country and the weight of the interconnecting lines represents the number of joint publications between authors from the two countries. The data are from the Compendex database covering the years 2000-2010.
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From page 139... ...
One example of apparent foreign government investment is mentioned in Chapter 3 (Box 3-2) , suggesting Chinese and Iranian interests in rapid deployments using commodity components.
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From page 140... ...
Extensive new laboratory facilities are known to be producing quality materials and sensor arrays. RECOMMENDATION 5-1 The intelligence community should closely monitor Chinese activities for signs that an operational capability is being established for manufacturing high-quality sensor arrays.
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From page 141... ...
information. Foreign governments also use sensor systems for internal law enforcement and civil concerns, such as pollution monitoring or tracking vehicular traffic.
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From page 142... ...
As technology advances have occurred, from starlight goggles to cooled IR to uncooled microbridges, the result has been lower cost and wider use in areas such as law enforcement, environmental surveillance, border surveillance, and even sport hunting. Earlier-generation technology has diffused into the marketplace (as an example, a Google search on night vision goggles pulls up hundreds of competing commercial sources)
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From page 143... ...
Historically the domain of only the most technically advanced and prosperous governments, satellites are rapidly becoming the purview of commercial industry, primarily for communications and broadcast applications. Importantly, high-resolution commercial satellites, such as the GeoEye-1 with 41 cm resolution are challenging military capabilities.
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From page 144... ...
FINDING 5-5 Current export restrictions will continue to have a significant effect on develop ment and maturation of detector technologies over the next decade. Numer ous foreign countries are already developing their own technology base rather than utilizing U.S.
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From page 145... ...
national security, foreign policy, and economic security interests. Reform efforts must reflect an inherently interagency process as current export control authorities rest with other departments.
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From page 146... ...
Most DOD ISR systems pay particular attention to key technologies that are the heart of the sensor system concept. Considerable attention has been paid to parts such as application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs)
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As foreign businesses equip much of the world with night vision capability, the once-prominent U.S. lead fades.
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The difference in threat level between some night vision capability and none is more significant than the difference between first- and third-generation imaging IR systems. As low-cost thermal imagers become more readily available, such as in some luxury automobiles, it remains only a matter of time before the U.S.
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From page 149... ...
InGaAs Dominant position Russia Various Bulk/LPE Small arrays Theory ? Dominant position United Kingdom SELEX LPE/MOCVD InGaAs R&D NOTE: LPE = liquid-phase epitaxy; MBE = molecular beam epitaxy; MOCVD = molecular organic chemical vapor deposition.
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From page 150... ...
MCT R&D United Kingdom SELEX Buy ? MCT R&D Gains in sensor performance and cost reduction can be attributed to advances in detector materials and devices and silicon CMOS technology.
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From page 151... ...
The United States must be prepared for surprise and respond quickly to neutralize any short-term advantage presented by our adversaries. Silicon CMOS technology is the manufacturing platform upon which most modern sensors are based, from readout integrated circuits to sophisticated signal processors.
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From page 152... ...
seeing Photons processors that are layered into the CMOS chip. Here, only specified intelligence would be the output, significantly reducing the data bandwidth for the sensor.
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