The main goal of electro-optical program is developing of electro-optic devices and presentation software that would be used separately or as a part of C2, C3 and C4 systems. Electro-optics devices combine sensors from multiple spectral ranges: visible light, thermal LWIR (long range infrared), MWIR (medium wave infrared), thermal LWIR (long range infrared) and short wave infrared SWIR. The main purpose of mentioned sensors is the following:
Visible light sensor is chosen according to system mission to work in majority of scene conditions like: color camera, high dynamic range camera, low light camera etc.
Unlike visible light sensors that actually captures reflected signal from light sources like sun, moon or artificial light, thermal sensors captures radiated heat from objects. Regarding system performance, preferred thermal sensor is cooled type in MWIR frequency band (wave lengths from 3 to 5 micrometers) which gives superior observation results no matter day or night. It is must have for naval conditions due to evaporation from see. Usage of uncooled LWIR frequency band (wave lengths from 8 to 15 micrometers) sensors is cost effective solution for land line observation in day and night condition, but it is not recommended for naval conditions. Typically it is used for critical assets protection or land line border protection.
SWIR sensor are in the middle between visible light sensor and thermal sensor because they capture both reflected signals from objects and also heat radiation from objects in frequency band from 0.9 to 1.5 micrometers. This property gives SWIR sensor superior performance compared to other sensors in fog conditions and good target identification performance in long range surveillance. Additionally frequency band of SWIR sensor is the same as laser designator, so SWIR sensors could be used as early warning for laser designated objects that is one of scenario for guided bombs or missiles attacks.
Thus a multisensor imaging system integrates various sensor types on positioner platform with remote controlling capability which enables exploiting good features of each individual sensor in particular scene and weather conditions. Additionally, by fusing information from various sensors gives synergy effects for enabling usage of the most advanced target recognition, classification and tracking capabilities.
A main achievement of electro-optical program is the third generation of multisensor imaging system, denoted as VMSIS3. Apart from using cutting edge sensors and optics at global scale, the hart of VMSIS3 is Vlatacom signal processing platform – vVSP which enables distributed signal processing platform on multiple high computing power embedded platforms. A vVSP unit performs both system control and video signal processing task. The brain of VMSIS3 systems are video signal processing algorithms that performs image enhancement, image stabilization, motion detection and target tracking. One special branch of image processing algorithms are target detection and classification algorithms that use artificial intelligence methods.