Nov 11 2008
OASYS Technology, a leading electro-optical solutions provider, and eMagin Corporation (OTC:EMAN), a leader in OLED technology, announced that OASYS has been selected by the United States Army to provide 20,000 units of the Remote Eyepiece Display-Imager (RED-I) head mounted display system for the Thermal Weapon Sight (TWS) Remote Viewer program. The RED-I system is equipped with eMagin OLED-XL™ microdisplays.
The IDIQ contract awarded to OASYS exceeds $26 million with multi-year production rate deliveries scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2009. The new RED-I product features instant-on startup at temperatures down to -40ºC, extended battery life, and is compatible with both new and legacy Thermal Weapon Sight (TWS) systems. The HMD attaches directly to standard-issue military helmets or protective eyewear, is thin enough to fit behind the blast visor of the cupola protective ensemble, and is backwards compatible with previous versions of the system.
OASYS’ patent-applied-for monolithic eyepiece optic provides a field of view and resolution equivalent or better than the internal TWS eyepiece while also allowing a see-through mode of operation.
“eMagin’s OLED-XL microdisplay exhibits excellent contrast properties, enabling low temperature operation, and extremely low power requirements that are key to the meeting the performance specifications for the thermal weapon sight system,” said Brett Rosner, chief operating officer of OASYS.
“We are delighted to support OASYS and the US Army by providing high performance microdisplays,” commented Susan Jones, eMagin’s chief business officer. “This award represents the growing recognition of OLED microdisplays as a critical component for military applications which require low power and instant-on temperatures over a wide operating range.”
The thermal weapon sights are used with a variety of weapons to provide identification of targets as well as to see through smoke and fog.