1. Low-light vision requirements

Humans have a capacity for daytime vision, which gradually becomes limited in performance with decreasing levels of illumination. The primary need is to compensate for the lack of night vision. In the twentieth century, military needs in particular prompted the development of these technologies and the mass production of night vision equipment for individual soldiers. The performance achieved passively, at low light levels, has had the impact of enabling Western coalitions to prefer night-time military operations to daytime ones, because of the advantage thus gained over the adversary, particularly in the asymmetrical conflicts we have encountered since the beginning of the 21st century.

These technologies also meet numerous civil and scientific needs. These include low-light applications in coastal navigation, surveillance, sea rescue, industrial vision, animal...