BELLINGHAM, Wash., USA -- This year's annual SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing symposium -- the largest international event for sensing and related technologies for industrial, commercial, and defense applications -- will include an expanded range of industrial and commercial sensing topics.
The event will be held at the Orlando World Center Marriott Resort and Convention Center 13-17 April. It is expected to draw 6,000 attendees, and will feature 55 conferences, 57 courses and workshops, and nearly 500 companies in a three-day exhibition.
The change in scope is aimed to better reflect the synergy in the industry, where devices and systems developed for the military find applications in industry, and industry-developed sensors find applications in defense and security.
The added topics strengthen existing programs in imaging, sensing, unmanned and robotic systems, and sensor and data analysis, with conferences on terahertz technology; environmental, chemical and biological sensing; smart biomedical and physiological sensors; photonics transportation; sensing for agriculture and food quality and safety; fiber optics sensors; and the next generation of spectroscopic technologies.
The free-admission exhibition will be held 14-16 April, and will include nine of the top ten global defense contractors as well as numerous specialized equipment, applications, and systems providers. Five winners of the 2008 Prism Awards for Photonics Innovation, sponsored by SPIE and Laurin Publishing, will exhibit: NoblePeak Vision, Tessera, Coherent, Daylight Solutions, and Sensor Electronic Technology.
A germ-free mobile laboratory will be part of a special robotics and unmanned systems display. The laboratory was developed in collaboration with the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center of the U.S. Army, and is designed to safely analyze potentially hazardous biological and chemical specimens.
Also on display will be a DARPA Challenge vehicle, unmanned aerial vehicles like those being used in Iraq and Afghanistan, and robotic systems and other real-world applications of IR imagers, sensors, and optics.
Positioning for the future
A panel on "Future Directions in U.S Government Funding" will include John Pellegrino, Chair, U.S. Army Research, Development, and Engineering Command Sensors Technical Focus Team, and Director, Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory; Walter Jones, Executive Director, Office of Naval Research; and Brendan Godfrey, Director, Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Norman Augustine, Retired Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp., will present a symposium-wide plenary talk titled "Re-engineering Engineering." Dr. Augustine was chair of the authoring committee of the recent Rising Above the Gathering Storm report on the challenges facing America's ability to remain competitive and maintain its standard of living.
Kazuo Hotate of the Univ. of Tokyo will be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the symposium banquet, and will give a talk on fiber optic nerve systems that are expected to be the key for enhancing safety and security in the 21st century society.
Special sessions in the conference on Infrared Technology and Applications will mark the 50-year anniversary of HgCdTe (mercury cadmium telluride) detector technology. Speakers have been invited from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Poland, the United States, Israel, Japan, Korea, China, Australia, and India. The conference also includes a session on uncooled FPAs, with papers from BAE Systems, L-3, DRS Infrared Technologies, Toshiba, and others.
Crossover of sensor technology between security and industrial applications is the topic of several papers in the Fiber Optic Sensors and Applications conference, including an invited presentation by Marc Nikles of Omnisens on "Long-distance fiber optic sensing solutions for pipeline leakage, intrusion, and ground movement detection." The conference also will include a panel discussion on business and development issues associated with commercialization and deployment of the technology.
The conference on Next-Generation Spectroscopic Technologies includes a session on imaging spectroscopy with papers from broad range of industry players such as HORIBA Jobin Yvon, Lockheed Martin, OPOTEK, Light Solutions, Specim Spectral Imaging, ATK Mission Research, VTT Optical Instruments, and Infotonics Technology.
In the conference on Terahertz Physics, Devices, and Systems, keynote speaker Federico Capasso of Harvard Univ. will give a presentation on terahertz quantum cascade lasers, followed by an invited paper on noninvasive mail inspection by Hiromichi Hoshina and others from RIKEN and Nagoya Univ. (See the team's recent SPIE Newsroom article on this topic at this link: spie.org/x33690.xml.)
In addition to technical short courses at beginning through advanced levels on topics such as imaging and sensing devices, systems and data processing, and others, three professional development workshops will be offered. Workshop topics are ITAR compliance, product innovation, and engineering project leadership.
Ray Johnson, Senior Vice President and CTO of Lockheed Martin, is Symposium Chair, and Michael Eismann, Technical Advisor for the Electro-Optics Sensor Technology Division of the Air Force Research Lab, is Symposium Co-Chair.
Related publications
Articles by SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing authors recently published in the SPIE Newsroom include:
"Volume holograms for optical correlation," Phillip Birch, Rupert Young, Chris Chatwin, Univ. of Sussex: spie.org/x33635.xml
"Grating-inscription technique eliminates need for fiber stripping and recoating," Stephen Mihailov, Dan Grobnic, Christopher Smelser, Robert Walker, Communications Research Centre Canada: spie.org/x33579.xml.
Conference proceedings manuscripts will be published online in the SPIE Digital Library (SPIEDigitalLibrary.org) as soon as approved following the conference. The SPIE Digital Library contains more than 270,000 articles on optics and photonics research, with approximately 20,000 new journal and proceedings articles added each year. Read more about the SPIE Digital Library online at spie.org/x2836.xml or access papers via subscription or pay-per-view via theSPIE Digital Library website.
See the event website for registration and other information: spie.org/x12228.xml.
SPIE is the international optics and photonics society, founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. Serving more than 188,000 constituents from 138 countries, the Society advances emerging technologies through interdisciplinary information exchange, continuing education, publications, patent precedent, and career and professional growth. SPIE annually organizes and sponsors approximately 25 major technical forums, exhibitions, and education programs in North America, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. In 2008, the Society provided $1.9 million for scholarships, grants, and other activities supporting research and education around the world. For more information, visit SPIE.org.
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