As congressional appropriators are poised to add several hundred million dollars in fiscal 2023 for the U.S. Army’s Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular (ENVG-B), Elbit Systems of America said that it is planning to build more than 100,000 ENVG-Bs.
The Army requested no funding for ENVG-B in fiscal 2023.
In July, Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo said that it’s “too early to say” whether the service considers the Microsoft [MSFT] Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) headset as the replacement for ENVG-B (Defense Daily, July 25). Camarillo said an ongoing Army night vision strategy may inform that decision.
On Oct. 5, Elbit officials told reporters that the company had received a $107 million Army contract last week with fiscal 2022 dollars for the production of thousands of ENVG-Bs.
“Recent conversations with the Army have indicated that they are again talking about a basis of issue for ENVG-B of over 100,000 systems ,” said Raanan Horowitz, the president of Elbit Systems of America. “How that’s going to be reflected by the Army in their budget planning and this versus IVAS, I will let the Army talk. I don’t want to talk for them. We are looking at the ENVG-B, and we are assuming and planning for a basis of issue that’s going to be at the level of 100,000 systems.”
In October 2020, L3Harris [LHX] and Elbit each received production deals worth potentially $442 million from the Army to deliver ENVG-B devices to begin replacing its legacy monocular night division devices (Defense Daily, Oct. 22 2020).
L3Harris produces its ENVG-B devices in Londonderry, New Hampshire, while Elbit builds its ENVG-Bs in Roanoke, Va.
Elbit has been developing an Advanced Low Light Level Sensor (ALLLS) that may one day see its way onto IVAS, though that is unlikely in the next several years.
Horowitz has said that IVAS lacks a good night vision sensor and that IVAS’ night vision is below the level of analog image intensifiers (Defense Daily, April 20).
“With regards to sensors for IVAS, we are focused on what we can do to help the Army realize their vision of IVAS, and I’m talking vision of IVAS at large–not this system, or that provider, or that exact configuration,” Horowitz said on Oct. 5. “Where we can contribute to the Army is bringing to the market a capable, digital, low light level sensor. Right now, I don’t think the Army has a solution for that, and therefore, I think the investment they’re making in ALLLS is critical. I believe in the next couple of years we will be able to give the Army a solution that will enable that capability and allow a system like IVAS to have comparable, and maybe better, night vision capability than the analog system.”
“We are also working with the Army on other areas where we believe we can add value to the IVAS overall concept,” he said. “If it’s in innovative, new headboard display capabilities, if it’s in networking, all this we are working to support and to help with our investment and technologies.”