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    Chair Invitation

    Welcome!

    The Organising Committee of the SPIE European Symposium on Optics/ Photonics in Security & Defence welcomes you to this exciting meeting that crosses the divide between fundamental optical science and the application of the underpinning technologies in advanced defence and security systems. New challenges continue to emerge in areas such as in relation to network-enabled capability/network-centric warfare and military operations/peace-keeping in the urban theatre, which are changing the way that the technology base is likely to be exploited in the future. This unique symposium is the fifth of its kind to be held in Europe, and will offer many opportunities to network with colleagues from a variety of disciplines in academia, industry, and government from all over the world.

    Designed to complement the SPIE Defense & Security Symposium held annually in Orlando, Florida, this Symposium will address all aspects of this evolving field. Materials, optical devices, enabling technologies, advanced system concepts, sensors (including design and fabrication), silicon microsystems, nanotechnology, electro-optic systems, lasers, millimetre wave/THz technology to name but a few Engineers and researchers from government, military, academia and the commercial sector will discuss current status and future directions.

    This meeting will be a showcase for multi-disciplinary research and should provide an excellent opportunity for individuals and organisations to explore new opportunities to collaborate with new partners from other fields of activity. The event will be co-located with the 16th SPIE Symposium on Remote Sensing, which further enhances opportunities to collaborate with new partners and/or individuals from related fields of activity.

    The Symposium will open a week before the eighth Anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Those horrific events fundamentally and irreversibly influenced the course of mankind's future and posed major challenges for those agencies entrusted with the security of the public at large. Subsequent atrocities in Bali, Madrid, London and Sharm el-Sheikh, as well as attacks on people in other nations demonstrated that the threat of terrorism must to be pursued at an International level. Major advances continue to be made in dealing with the asymmetry of such threats as a result of the level of collaboration between nations and people around the globe.

    All papers from this symposium will be permanently archived in the SPIE Digital Library, where they will be made available to others in the international scientific community who seek to learn, make discoveries, and innovate.

    We look forward to meeting you!


    2009 Symposium Chairs:

    David H. Titterton
    Defence Science and Technology Lab.
    (United Kingdom)
    2009 Symposium Chair

    Reinhard R. Ebert
    FGAN-FOM Research Institute
    for Optronics and Pattern Recognition
    (Germany)
    2009 Symposium Co-Chair