Night Vision India seminar to address Indian Army's Huge Demand

NEW DELHI - Nov. 2, 2013 - PRLog -- The second edition of the well-attended Night Vision India seminar-cum-exhibition, being held on 21-22 January 2014 in New Delhi, will address the huge reqquirements of the Indian Armed Forces to improve night fighting capabilities.

Leading night vision technology companies exhibited their wares at the last edition of the show. Among them were ITT Exelis, Sofradir, Controp Precision Technologies, Defence Vision Systems, Photonis, Wamco, INO, Tata Power SED, Tak Technolgies and others.

The Army's current night fighting capability is limited. What the Army needs is 'third generation' night vision devices (NVDs) for soldiers, night sights for rifles and night vision equipment for armoured and mechanised formations. What the Army has are limited second generation devices which at times are more of a hindrance than an asset and too few third generation NVDs.

The Indian Army needs 30,000 third generation NVDs to meet its requirements as per the present war establishment (WE) authorisation. The large numbers required add substantially to cost but this could be reduced with indigenous manufacture. The need is to equip each man with a NVD but as a first step at least 50 per of the soldiers need to be so equipped. The night fighting capability of the Army particularly the infantry and Special Forces need to be upgraded on a war footing. The latest NVD technology on the horizon which can be looked at is the black and white picture for night scenes as compared to the classic green hued image.

The night fighting capability is crucial to the success of critical defence programmes such as F-INSAS, MBTs, Special Forces upgrade and indigenous FICVs. The Indian Army thermal imaging sights purchase was cleared by the country's Defence Ministry on 2 April 2013. Based on an estimated four-year delivery time frame, it's expected that the last Indian Army night vision systems will be supplied in around 2017.

The Indian government has approved a home ministry plan to install night-vision surveillance along India’s international borders. Initially, a group of ministers constituted in 2001 had emphasised the importance installation of night surveillance security devices along international border. The list of security equipment includes battle field surveillance radars (BFSR), thermal sensors, high powered sensors, night vision devices, and night binoculars. BFSRs have night vision range of 40 km. Thermal sensors can detect targets in a hilly terrain. Installation of night surveillance devices will facilitate in countering hostile infiltration, smuggling, and trans-border crime. An amount of Rs 4860 million will be spent over the next six years for installing state-of-art night vision equipment on international borders along Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and Myanmar. In the first phase night vision devices covering 12,500 km along these borders will be installed. 2500 km border along Nepal and Bhutan will be covered in next phase.

The seminar is organised by IMR Media (imrmedia.in/events) in collaboration with the Centre for Land Warfare Studies.