ISDEF 2010 - Part I

With thanks to Doubletapper, I was invited to the Israeli Defense show this year (ISDEF 2010). It was an amazing show with a lot of heavyweight companies and technologies showing up to vie for a piece of the multi-billion dollar Israeli (and worldwide) defense industry. Below are a bunch of new and impressive products now available to keep our armed forces safer and more effective.

Super sight

Vision-enhancing products this year ranged from super-high-def night vision to amazing thermal scopes, to seeing through walls.


No, Doubletapper did not forget to remove the lens cap...

There is a new monocle night vision scope from Nivisys (one of many such companies at the show) which provides an extremely high resolution image using amplified light. Because of the amount of ambient light in the showroom, it worked with a pinhole in the lens cap, so you look kinda silly trying it out (see above), but it still works great with the cap on:



The same company also makes a thermal imaging scope which can (of course) be weapon-mounted. It was one of many thermal imaging products at the show. This scope runs over $10,000.



A snapshot through the Nivisys thermal vision scope. The real-life image was much sharper.

We did not get to play with, but only got a brochure of, a new cheaper hand-held thermal imaging scope by Digital Ally. It is only (!) $4300.




Low-profile night vision goggles (NVG):

Sure I may look silly, but at least I can see in the dark.

These new NVGs from the O'Gara Group has low-profile, periscope style optics, and project the amplified light images onto translucent screens in front of your eyes. This results in less disorientation and the ability to see the actual world and whatever ambient light there is - with both eyes - all while being served a delicious entree of night vision.


An attempted photo of O'Gara's latest NVG offering - HUD style.

Oooh, but there's more... One of these goggle's "eyes" can be replaced with a mini projector which looks just like the NVG component, and can project whatever you'd like in front of your eye - maybe you'd like some realtime intel, overhead imagery, or even friendlies' positions - and still have the other eye use night vision.


Project whatever you like in front of your eyes - even the latest playoff scores...

But can it see through walls?

Enough talk of these cool but outmoded ways of seeing things. How about seeing people through walls? While the Camero system is not quite new, it will never cease to amaze me. Their large (and quite unwieldy) 3D version is simply amazing. You set up the Xaver 800 up near a wall, and it shows on the screen a 3D model of the room with its occupants, that can be spun around and analyzed. Awesome.

Stock photo. Sorry!

Camero's smaller version of Superman envy, the Xaver 400, is their more famous model which can see and track man-sized objects through walls, and show the people and their movements in 2D on the screen.

Doubletapper playing with Camero's sick see-though-walls toy.

In what may be a world-wide exclusive (I have seen no mention of this product anywhere else), below is a video of a Camero representative showing us their newest model, the Xaver 100, in action. This model is still in beta testing, which means that only a few lucky special forces units worldwide get to play with it while Camero works out any bugs. The Xaver 100 is small enough to fit in a double mag pouch, and it can detect the presence of a person through a wall (yet not plot and track in 2D).

I want one.




Sensing shots


Battlefield shot sensing - on a stick. (See that silver pencil thingy mounted next to the guy's barrel?)

Here is a company (Microflown Technologies) that is developing a 3D acoustic sensor that is rifle-mounted and can detect the location of shots fired at you. It feeds information to the rifle sight and can point you (with a constantly updated red arrow) towards those fiends who dared shoot at you!

It is amazing technology which uses sensitive sensors mounted on three different axes to pinpoint the location of the shot to within a 1 degree accuracy. Check out this demo video below. There were simulated shots coming from two computer speakers, and I was testing the sensor out with snaps.




But where are the guns, for dang's sake?!

Sorry to keep you hanging, but tune in to Part II, coming soon, to see new guns, accessories, and more awesome new technologies displayed at the ISDEF 2010.