3. Developments and prospects

3.1 Developments in military optronics

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...