When people think of night-vision goggles, they imagine the pitch black of the night illuminated in a greenwash that improves visibility. That’s old-school technology now. The US Army’s Lancer Brigade of Joint Base Lewis–McChord in Washington state showed off what soldiers see through the military’s latest night-vision goggles. As seen in the video below, the futuristic goggles make the battlefield look like a video game.
The new goggles, known as the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular (ENVG-B), were designed to massively improve a soldier’s ability to see what’s going on around them under any lighting conditions to distinguish what they see precisely. That was the most significant issue with traditional night vision goggles. The traditional ones worked by transforming the photons collected in low-light settings into electrons that enlarged as they passed through a vacuum tube, illuminating a phosphor-coated screen that offered a brighter image of what the goggles were seeing.
The old night vision technology was chosen to be green because it was considered the easiest color to look at for extended periods in the dark. However, that was not the case. The brightened images lacked contrast and were very noisy, making it difficult for users to distinguish what they saw. For soldiers in combat, that can be particularly problematic, causing eyestrain and fatigue.
Blake Gaughan, the infantry platoon leader at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, said:
Night vision goggles with the green tint seem cool and all until you’ve actually been wearing those all night. If you’re running continuous night operations, it just gives you a headache.
The ENVG-B night vision goggles replace the green phosphor tubes with white ones that produce better contrast and brighter images, making it easier on the eyes. The traditional technology is paired with enhancements that include a thermal imager that can see through obstructions such as dust, smoke, and low-visibility weather. It even works when there’s no external illumination, like when in an underground cave. In addition, augmented reality enhancements, including real-time edge detection, outline and enhance objects like fellow troops in the field.
But that’s not all! The goggles can also wirelessly connect with an electronic scope on a weapon, allowing a soldier to remotely look through it and aim at a target without physically exposing themselves to a threat.
Another downfall with existing night-vision technology that the new goggles are addressing is the lack of stereo vision. While the human brain is much better at assessing what it sees and tracking targets with entire depth perception, the electronics that produce night vision are expensive. Therefore, it was much cheaper to equip soldiers with monoculars featuring the technology.
In contrast, the Army’s new ENVG-B goggles feature a “dual tubed binocular system,” allowing soldiers to see in 3D at night while providing the flexibility of moving either tube out of the way so the night vision functionality can enhance what a soldier naturally sees through their eyes.
The ENVG-B goggles, which weigh around two pounds, aren’t as light as binoculars because they rely on a battery to keep them powered for roughly eight hours per charge. However, they’re much smaller and lighter than traditional night vision goggles, and they don’t require uncomfortable head straps to keep them in place. Instead, the new googles flip down from a mount on the front of a soldier’s helmet.
Earlier this year, DARPA announced the launch of a program to develop a new multispectral Enhanced Night Vision (ENVision) system for the military to replace their existing bulky night-vision goggles with ones that are as compact and light as a pair of eyeglasses.
