L3Harris

For information about products by Harris, go to the page Elbit Systems Of America. See the History section for details.

Logo

L3Harris is an American company producing various military equipment, including image intensifier tubes, night vision devices and more.

Reputation

L3Harris has a high reputation of revolutionizing military technology and capabilities. They have massive productions of radios, radar equipment and night vision. The company mainly focuses on delivering to the U.S. armed forces, where they have many contracts. The company does also sell to the civilian market, however it is very limited, and the company focuses most on the contracts given by the government, which often results in long waiting times for nightvision.

History

• In 2001, Litton Industries Inc. (including their night vision division) is acquired by Northrop Grumman Corporation, becoming Northrop Grumman Electro-Optical Systems (NGEOS).
• In 2008, Northrop Grumman sells NGEOS to L3 Communications.
• In 2019, L3 and Harris merged to L3Harris. Harris was forced to sell their night vision arm to Elbit in an attempt to avoid monopolization.

Technology

Image Intensifiers

Unfilmed

A comparison between an L3 Unfilmed and a Photonis 4G image intensifier.

Around the year 2000 L3 released the first filmless tubes, originally called Infinity. Over the years, continual improvements to the technology were made, extending reliability and increasing performance, while producing at an ever increasing consistency.

L3 Unfilmed image intensifiers, as of today, outperform all other tubes by a considerable margin, with exceptional performance even in very low ambient light conditions, often reaching an SNR of 35 and above, and a FOM of up to 4000.

Due to patents L3 is currently the only western company producing filmless image intensifier tubes.

SuperGain

In 2022, the American night vision retailer TNVC launched a new offer of night vision devices featuring L3Harris Unfilmed image intensifiers labelled SuperGain. In contrast to standard Unfilmed image intensifiers, these feature a drastically increased gain of 100,000-120,000 fL/fc instead of the usual 40,000-80,000 fL/fc, with no decrease in lifespan.

The theory is that these image intensifiers come from the production line aimed at fulfilling new procurement contracts in the Omni 9 category for the U.S. military.

These high gain tubes have been used in some L3 night vision goggles before they became commercially available. Currently, the commercial SuperGain tubes are capped at 2999 FOM, with the rest going to the military.

Products

Devices

• AN/PVS-14
• GPNVG-18

Image Intensifiers

L3Harris uses a relatively simple naming scheme for their image intensifier models outlined in N-EOPPS-1580.

Standard Product

Example: 11769UW-EA-C001-20UM.

The first three dash-separated parts refer to the mechanical configuration.

Tube Type

Example: 11769UW

The first part, specifically, refers to the image intensifier format, in this case MX-11769. Following that will be two letters indicating the tube type and phosphor color. F stands for filmed or U for unfilmed, and G for green or W for white phosphor.

EMI Shielding

Example: EA

The second section indicates whether the tube is electromagnetically shielded or not. SA denotes shielded, EA indicates it could be either shielded or not shielded, and NA for no shielding.

Pigtail

Example: C001

The third section is the pigtail type, if applicable. It begins with the letter C and is followed by two or three numbers, e.g. 001 for a standard PVS-14-style pigtail or 00 for no pigtail.

Smart Number

Example: 18UM

The fourth and last part is the Smart Number model code, which can be used to determine quality and performance.

A smart number consists of two digits and two letters.

The two digits refer to the minimum/maximum performance level.

The first letter is the restriction indicator. U stands for unlimited, L stands for limited (to meet export requirements). Only for L tubes, one can obtain the maximum FOM by multiplying the number (e.g. 18) by 100 (e.g. 1800). U tubes do not have a maximum FOM. For example, it is entirely possible to have an 18UA or 20UM tube with a 2700+ FOM.

The last letter indicates the image quality. A stands for aviation-grade, and M specifies mil-spec.

Large Customized Contracts

Example: 11769UW-EA-C001-1234

Large customized contracts follow the same naming convention as the standard product, with the only exception being the last four digits. In this case, they refer to a contract or N-EOPPS number, in which the specifications are defined.

1701

Example: 11769UW-EA-C001-1701

Image intensifiers ending with -1701 are known to be "fallout" filmless (and possibly also filmed) image intensifiers. These can reach very high performance levels with a SNR of up to 40, while failing to meet some other requirement of the standard product categories.

Small Customized Contracts

Example: 11769UW-EA-C001-20UM/1234

Small customized contracts simply append an Order Identification Number (OID) to the Smart Number model code. The referenced order then defines the requested deviations from the standard specifications.

Further Reading

Official statement of L3Harris on lifetime of their Unfilmed image intensifiers:

Facts about L3Harris unfilmed straight from the horse's mouth!