Developments and prospects

Over the last few decades, the military sector has been the driving force behind the development of optronics. Just look at the table 1 , which summarizes the chronology of the main military applications in the various spectral bands of interest.

• We can see that the first beginnings were made towards the end of the Second World War, with prototypes of air-to-surface homing beacons operating in the visible and near-IR bands. In the 50s, the visible and near-IR bands were exploited for active night vision (with IR illumination) and for the first air-to-air homing beacons.

• The 60s were...