Russian military engineers reportedly have completed an aircraft-based laser system capable of destroying enemy satellites out of space.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is proposing to spend $66 million on a program to develop and deploy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that fire lasers at intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) shortly after takeoff, or during their boost phase of flight, when they are most vulnerable.

The technical development in the field of industrial fire protection and early fire detection has made tremendous progress during recent years.

ViDAR (visual detection and ranging) -- the world's first optical radar designed for maritime search and detection – was recently incorporated as a payload in the SKELDAR V-200, a heavy fuel engine VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) made by Swiss-based UMS SKELDAR.

Blighter Surveillance Systems Ltd (http://www.blighter.com ), a British electronic-scanning (e-scan) radar and sensor solution provider, has unveiled Blighter® Explorer Nexus, a fully integrated, battery operated, man portable radar/camera surveillance system.

Sierra-Olympic Technologies has recently introduced the Viento 67-640 thermal camera for perimeter surveillance, robotics, and other rugged outdoor imaging applications.  The new thermal imager features a fixed focal length and fixed mount.  With a 640 x 480, 17-micron thermal imaging core, the newest Viento camera provides standard NTSC/PAL composite analog video output with simultaneous 8-bit / 14-bit Camera Link^® digital output

Sierra-Olympic Technologies offers the new Tamron family of longwave infrared lenses for OEM and security/surveillance imaging applications.  Tamron has recently selected Sierra-Olympic Technologies as the new stocking distributor for the cost-effective Tamron LWIR Zoom Lenses.

On the last day of SPIE’s 2016 DCS exhibition in Baltimore, Kevin Fogarty with Canon showed us a 19 micron pixel pitch sensor that can achieve a full color and high definition image in extremely low light environments.

Hyperspectral imaging technology has advanced significantly in the last 50 years, and Greg Staples with Bayspec talked with us for a few minutes at the 2016 SPIE DCS exhibition about how it has changed.

Telops has responded to the request of their customers for a smaller version of their Hyper-Cam hyperspectral camera and has miniaturized it enough so that it can be integrated into smaller systems and packages.

A smart idea with multiple application opportunities in Logistics, Security and Intelligent Traffic Systems. Thanks to embedded intelligence Vision Components Smart Cameras are able to initiate and control processes by itself with low power consumption. Our Smart Cameras are robust, long-lasting and freely programmable.

Tony Vengel, VP of business development for Nova Sensors, gives some background of his company and their cameras covering the full electromagnetic spectrum under their parent company, Teledyne Technologies.

Loig Bourree, VP of night vision technologies for PHOTONIS, introduces us to the NOCTURN low-light camera module, which provides imaging capabilities from daylight to bright starlight conditions in the visible to NIR spectrum. This camera features 1280 x 1024 resolution at 100 fps; low size, weight, and power (SWaP); onboard intelligent electronics; and optical and video interfaces.

Peter Hallett, director of marketing and industry relations at SPIE, and Ron Grunsby, editor at Photonics Online, talk about current trends in the defense, security, and sensing industry, as well as SPIE moving DSS from Orlando to Baltimore, SPIE's initiatives taken on in the last year, and the organization's initiatives for the future.