Thales wins UK target locator<br>system competition

The contract, for more than 700 J-TAS systems, follows an international competition and extensive field trials. The equipment will provide troops in the field with an ultra lightweight, compact, multi-role, night vision target locator capability. The new J-TAS equipment is expected to enter service in 2009. The J-TAS equipment, which is the size of a large pair of binoculars and used in a similar way, combines daylight and thermal vision with eye-safe laser range finding, embedded military GPS and azimuth angular referencing. Overall, J-TAS provides the user with an integrated target locator for general surveillance as well as accurate target location for both mortar and artillery fire control. This will enable the soldiers to see at night, provide accurate target location out to 5km and provide general day and night surveillance capabilities. The culmination of two years investment and development by Thales UK, the design of J-TAS includes intuitive control features to simplify and speed up the targeting task. The compact hand held system fully exploits the advantages of un-cooled thermal imaging technology and low power optimisation to give a dramatic reduction in whole life costs.