Panoramic night vision goggles now offer all combat pilots with a 95 degree field of vision compared to the more traditional versions offering only a 40 degree field of vision. All of these goggles use 4 x 16mm image intensifier tubes whereas more traditional night vision goggles only have 2 x 18mm tubes.
The great thing about these panoramic night vision goggles for combat pilots is that they are able to improve their overall awareness of the situation that they are in. Plus they are much safer as they actual double the amount of area in front of them that they are able to view so allowing them to be able perform almost the same kind of tactics that they would use in the daytime at night. This in turn results in much better tracking and targeting capabilities than they had previously.
Another feature that is particularly unique to panoramic night vision goggles is known sometimes as auto gating. What this means is that whilst been worn, the wearer is protected from any kind of temporary loss of vision or it becoming impaired because of sudden flashes of bright light occurring. Normally such bright flashes may have been caused by a flaring going off. Each of the 4 tubes in the panoramic night vision goggles contain the auto gating feature so each tube if it should become exposed to any bright light source will then automatically reduce how much the wearer is able to see (gain) by blocking it out.
But because this feature works independently in each tube then if one of the tubes is required to go into auto gating mode the other tubes will continue to operate in the normal way that is unless they are also exposed to the same bright light as well. By having this feature within the tubes this now means that the combat pilot is able to retain good visual of all around them at all times which makes them more aware of the situation in which they are in.
Although panoramic night vision goggles are extremely effective as they are at present, the manufacturers of these particular goggles are always looking for ways to upgrade and enhance them further. At some stage they hope to produce a pair which also includes sensor fusion technology. This kind of technology will use both night vision and image intensifying technology along with an infrared sensor technology as well. Such goggles will be commonly referred to as “Enhanced Night Vision Goggles” or ENVG’s and there are some that are already using such technology in theirs. In fact ITT Industries have partnered up with Raytheon in order to develop such goggles.