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The International Paris Air Show this year once again is playing host to some of the major photonics-based systems and sensor technology advancements. The event, which has taken place at the Paris-Le Bourget airport every other year since 1949, has always attracted some of the biggest names in the industries to showcase as well as launch new products and technologies.
One of the blue-chip companies to exhibit at the 2017 event is Raytheon. The US defense contractor, this year is showing off a compact new version of its Multi-spectral Targeting System (MTS). The 12-inch turret is said to weigh less than 60 pounds (ca. 27 kg) and is designed for exportability. These sensors provide detailed intelligence data from the visual and infrared spectra in the form of high-definition full motion. The new compact version has the same imaging and targeting capabilities that have made the MTS product family, including MTS-A, MTS-B, MTS-C and MTS-D (AN/DAS-4), the sensor of choice for US military imaging and targeting systems. Its features include detection in five spectral bands out to Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR) wavelengths, a three-color diode pump laser designator/rangefinder, a laser target marker, and a triple-mode target tracker.
The compact MTS delivers capabilities of sensors nearly twice its size at half the weight, making it ideally suited for platforms where space is at premium. More than 3000 of the larger versions have already been installed on helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft including the C-130J Hercules, and drones – with the latter platforms likely to be the major beneficiaries of the reduction in size and weight.
Elsewhere, the UK company Oxsensis, a 2003 spin-out from the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory (RAL), confirmed it is now working on a fiber-optic sensor for jet engines, under a new development collaboration with Parker Aerospace. The two firms are looking to adapt the pressure and temperature sensors, which are based on miniature Fabry-Perot cavity interferometers micromachined from sapphire, for aerospace applications. The venture-backed firm is already working with jet engine maker Rolls-Royce, in a project that it is hoped will see the fiber-optic sensors used in Engine Health Management (EHM) applications – with the potential for retro-fitting.
Also at the event, infrared sensor maker Sofradir is exhibiting its latest technology, which should soon include a “supersized” detector combining a 15 µm pitch with a 2048 x 2048 pixel array. The ALFA 2Kx2K (short for astronomy large focal array) device is designed with extremely large telescopes and astrophysics applications in mind, and will offer high-level performance in terms of quantum efficiency, noise, and dark current. The Sofradir team is collaborating with CEA-Leti and CEA-RFU scientists on the sensor development, and expects to deliver a low-noise prototype in early 2019.
The near-IR sensor will be based on mercury cadmium telluride (MCT), the compound semiconductor material used widely in high-performance space applications, including the “Sentinel” satellites that make up the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Earth observation mission.
Click here to know more from the Paris Air Show 2017.
