Name Change for SPIE DSS

Now in its 40th year, the SPIE event focusing on defense and sensing technologies will have an updated name and an expanded emphasis on imaging and commercial sensing in 2016.

SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing (DCS) will debut in Baltimore, MD (USA), 17-21 April as the latest iteration of SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing (DSS). The name change reflects a broadened scope for the conferences and exhibition to serve the fast-growing commercial segment of the sensing and imaging industries.

The new SPIE DCS includes two symposia and a three-day expo of sensing, imaging, laser, and infrared technologies in the Baltimore Convention Center. Conferences will cover imaging and image processing, sensors, robotics, big data analytics, biometrics, pattern and target recognition, display technologies, lasers, ocean sensing, energy harvesting, and other optics and photonics topics.

“This meeting continually evolves to keep up with new technologies and application areas,” said Andrew Brown, senior director for global business development. “SPIE looks forward to continuing to support these exciting, dynamic technologies and ever-evolving applications.”

The SPIE Commercial + Scientific Sensing and Imaging symposium (formerly SPIE Sensing Technology + Applications) is chaired by Ming C. Wu of University of California, Berkeley and cochaired by SPIE Fellow Majid Rabbani of Eastman Kodak. It will include 24 conferences on sensor technologies that are driving new commercial applications in health care, industrial processing, manufacturing, communications, agriculture, and transportation.

The Commercial + Scientific Sensing and Imaging symposium is paired with the larger SPIE Defense + Security symposium so that participants can benefit from a rich array of defense and security technologies already developed for dual-use applications. The SPIE Defense + Security technical program includes 38 conferences and focuses on sensors, imaging, and optical technologies for security, law enforcement, avionics/aerospace, homeland defense, and military applications.

SPIE member David A. Logan of BAE Systems will chair SPIE Defense + Security next year. Donald A. Reago Jr. of the US Army Night Vision & Electronic Sensors Directorate is the symposium cochair.

New conferences at SPIE Defense + Security next year include one on ultrafast bandgap photonics, chaired by SPIE members Michael Rafailov of University of Alberta (Canada) and Eric Mazur of Harvard University (USA), as well as one covering device refrigeration via optical technologies as well as thermo-electric and mechanical means.

Other new conferences will have sessions devoted to technologies for long-range imaging; anomaly detection and imaging with x-rays; and advanced, multi-band systems covering the UV region all the way to long-wave IR.

On the Commercial + Scientific Sensing and Imaging side, a new conference on computational imaging will cover the design, methods, and applications of devices and systems that can image and sense in unconventional ways.

SPIE expects to release a detailed schedule of events in January, but panel sessions on situational understanding, cyber physical systems, and other topics are being planned as part of the technical and industry programs.

Michael Kalodny and Tien Pham from the US Army Research Lab are organizing a panel of experts to discuss what is needed from the optics and photonics community to be able to comprehend and predict activities and group behaviors in a world where even the problem sets have become asymmetric.

The origins of SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing started with conferences on atmospheric imaging, high-powered lasers, and fibers and reconnaissance in Reston, VA, in 1976. When it moved to Orlando, FL, in 1986, it became SPIE Aerospace Sensing, with a strong technical program on aerospace, imaging, sensors, and display topics.

In 1996, the meeting became known as AeroSense, SPIE’s International Symposium on Aerospace/Defense Sensing, Simulation, and Controls, or simply AeroSense.

Topics expanded to include image and signal processing, optical pattern recognition, modeling and simulation, data mining, unmanned and unattended space, and IR imaging and sensing. By 2003, none of the conference topics focused specifically on aerospace and the name became SPIE Defense and Security.

In 2009, the name expanded to SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing with non-defense sensing conferences such as sensing for industry, environment, and health.

Still under the name SPIE DSS, the event moved to Baltimore, MD, in 2012.

More information: spie.org/DCS.

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