Thomson Trt Defense

Angenieux S.a.

Jean-Luc Espie

Isabelle Gonnaud

Gilbert Poulon

Bruno Coumert

Compact binoculars for nighttime vision

A binocular-type optical device for night as well as day vision. A night vision optical device is located in a central body. The night vision optical device includes an optical path which is folded through a pair of opposed holes in a central body containing the night vision device. Two lateral bodies are affixed to the central body, each lateral body having a hole facing the holes in the central body. One of the lateral bodies faces an oblong hole in the central body, and is rotatable with respect to the central body. Each of the lateral bodies includes a day vision optical system having an objective at one end and an eyepiece at another end. A mirror contained in each lateral body are adjustable to permit either the folded night vision optical path or the day vision optical path to be received by a pair of common eyepieces.

Day-and-night optical observation device

The field of the disclosure is that of enlarging optical lenses and, more precisely, binocular optical systems designed to be inserted into the night-time channel of an observation system, between a light intensifier tube and an observer's eyes. The disclosure can be applied especially to observation instruments for armored vehicles and, notably, periscopes for tanks. The disclosed optical system for a binocular device is of the type constituted by two groups, a forward group and a rear group, the rear group being constituted by a bonded doublet with plane rear face comprising a convergent convex lens bonded to a divergent lens, the lenses of the bonded doublet having different and complementary dispersions to compensate for the chromatism, and the focal length of the doublet ranging from 0.85F to 1.05F, where F is the focal length of the binocular device.

Growing community of inventors

Paris, France

Jean-Luc Espie