Goodrich awarded R&D contract to develop visible, IR detector array

JANUARY 9--Goodrich Corporation (Charlotte, NC; www.goodrich.com) has been awarded a contract by the US Army RDECOM CERDEC Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate to design, develop, and deliver an indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) detector array for use in high-definition (1920 x 1080 pixel) short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) night-vision cameras. The contract will further the development of high-resolution, small-pixel-pitch, high-sensitivity, dual-wavelength cameras that can produce images simultaneously in both the visible and the short-wavelength IR regions. This will allow users to image under the darkest of night conditions in a new wavelength band and will enable backward compatibility with older imaging technologies.

The project will be conducted by the company's Optical and Space Systems team (formerly Sensors Unlimited) in Princeton, NJ. Goodrich's research and development will focus on the design of an improved readout integrated circuit (ROIC) architecture with an unprecedented 12-μm pixel pitch, thus allowing for a tiny array with high resolution. This minimizes the weight and size of the optical assembly for long-range imaging. The resulting camera will have the potential for both commercial and defense applications in areas such as covert surveillance, optical coherence tomography, hot end process inspection, spectroscopy and a variety of other machine-vision tasks.