RECENT INTEGRATION OF 2ND GENERATION THERMAL IMAGING ON ARMORED VEHICLES

Raytheon is in the final stages of production of three high performance thermal imaging / fire control systems being integrated on existing USMC and US Army armored vehicles. A goal in the design of these systems was to provide integration into the host vehicle that when viewed by the customer and user provided the enhanced capabilities of today’s latest thermal imaging and image processing technology as well as operating in concert with the vehicle as originally designed. This paper will summarize the technical solutions for each of these programs emphasizing the thermal imaging, fire control, image processing and vehicle integration technologies. It will also outline guiding philosophies and lessons learned used to focus the design team in achieving the successful integration. The programs to be reviewed are; USMC 2nd Gen Thermal Imaging System, the USMC LAV-25 Improved Thermal Sight System (ITSS) and the USMC / US Army M1A1 50 Cal Thermal Sight / DayTV System.