FEINDEF 2023 – NVLS unveils its 50°/52° Wide Field of View family of NVGs
Reducing size and weight and increasing performances, while maintaining prices at a similar level, is a quite unusual operation. NVLS (Night Vision Lasers Spain), the Spanish night vision goggles champions, unveiled at FEINDEF 2023 its family of NVGs with a 0°/52° Field of View (FoV) that will allow a considerable improvement for land forces as well as for pilots.
“We managed to do this adopting a hybrid design that includes aspherical lenses, which allowed us to avoid the typical negative spiral when increasing the FoV. Instead, we managed to reduce the number of lenses the weight and the size of our NVGs while increasing the FoV from the typical 40° to 50 or 52°,” Eng. Jorge de la Torre Noetzel, the company CEO, tells EDR On-Line. The proof is given by putting side by side a monocular of the old generation and one of the new; length goes from 115 to less than 90 mm, weight is reduced from 350 grams to less than 300, and the FoV is considerably increased. “And I want to underline that the weight saving does not come from the use of plastics in mechanical parts, but from overall premium design,, as our NVGs are produced using aviation aluminium alloys as well as magnesium alloys, which allow them to be extremely rugged, able to work at very high and very low temperatures and be submersible up to 20 metres,” the company CEO adds.
Founded in 2003, the company initially produced NVGs under license, then it decided to move forward and start developing its own products. The development work on the latest family of NVGs took two years. The NVLS 50° FoV family for land forces uses Photonis 16 mm image intensifying tubes. Here we can find the Minimus Mono 50 single tube system and the Minimus Bino 50 with two tubes.
The NVLS 52° FoV family uses 18 mm tubes which includes the Evo Mono 52 and the Evo Bino 52. As for pilots, the ANVIS family recently increased with the advent of the Micro ANVIS Heli (50°) and Anvis Heli (52°), and of the Micro ANVIS Jet (50°). Finally a four-tube system known as Maximus Panoramic NVG provides a 102° FoV.
To cope with the launch of the new family the company moved into new premises in Alcobendas, the new facility having 3,000 m2, which hosts the R&D section, and the production of optical and high precision mechanical elements that compose the NVGs.
Completely ITAR-free, NVLS products were introduced in the Army Spanish Special Forces units following a contract signed in late 2022 for 440 binocular NVGs. A further contract for 120 systems, also binocular, was filed by the Spanish Air Force SF units. The 50º Micro Anvis Heli has been also adopted by the the Guardia Civil Airwing, and other Ministry of the Interior units are also adopting this products.
“Today, officially presenting our new line of products at FEINDEF, we start the official introduction of this product line on international markets,” Mr. de la Torre tells EDR On-Line. However the adventure of NVLS is far from being finished. “We aim at getting as close as possible to the 60° FoV mark in monocular and binocular systems, and close to 120º FOV in the panoramic goggle,” the CEO concludes.
Photos by P. Valpolini
