By Calvin Biesecker
FLIR Systems [FLIR] yesterday said it has acquired OmniTech Partners, Inc., for $42 million in cash, giving it image intensification capabilities (I2) for use with thermal weapons sights as well as providing it with lens making capabilities to make reflective optics.
Reflective optics allows for visible I2 and infrared (IR) to have matching fields of view, FLIR said.
OmniTech, based in Pennsylvania, develops and manufactures weapons-mounted I2 sensors and image-fused I2 and IR imaging systems. FLIR said its purchase “provides a bridge for I2 users to the world of infrared and the future of multi-spectral night vision, allowing the merger of these two critical technologies to maximize the benefits of both.”
A spokeswoman for FLIR said that OmniTech’s image-fused I2 and IR technology allows a user to see both simultaneously. “The IR is great for detecting targets through smoke, foliage, dust, etc, while the I2 offers target identification, thus offering an perfect detect and ID solution,” she said. “This technology also allows FLIR to offer a low-cost IR add-on solution to hundreds of thousands of existing I2 devices around the world.”
OmniTech will be renamed FLIR Government Systems Pittsburgh and the business unit will target weapon sights, night vision goggles, and other night vision sensors for individual soldiers, force protection, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and other I2 applications that will benefit from using IR, FLIR said. The company said its “high volume manufacturing capacity and low costs will be essential to the adoption of these combined products on a large scale.”
OmniTech expects to have $21.8 million in sales this year. The deal is expected to be immaterial to FLIR’s earnings in 2009 and 2010.
The OmniTech purchase follows FLIR’s acquisition earlier this year of Salvador Imaging, Inc., a provider of visible and low-light imaging systems. That deal also bolstered FLIR’s product offerings for both military and commercial security customers.
FLIR now offers the full spectrum of technology from visible through long wave IR, as well as night vision technologies such as IR, I2 and Electron Multiplying Charge Coupled Device cameras.
“FLIR is well positioned to be the world’s leader in night vision, with the unique ability to integrate all these technologies together to provide complete solutions at the lowest cost,” Early Lewis, FLIR’s president and CEO, said in a statement.