Figure of Merit (FOM) in Night Vision Devices

2021-09-15

In military applications, Night Vision Devices,eg:night vision monocular, night vision goggles, night vision binoculars are widely used in search, rescue, law enforcement,and surveillance operations and have become crucial equipment for armed forces across the globe. Night vision devices are developed with the ability to provide a clear image at night without additional illuminators. These Devices are today useful to provide enormous benefits to the soldiers to step ahead in the nighttime combat missions.

When we choose night vision devices, there are several very important performance parameters that need to be considered are:

While choosing NVDs, few important performance parameters that need to be considered are Figure of Merit, Signal-to-Noise ratio, Resolution.

Today, I mainly introduce the Figure of Merit(FOM) of night vision devices.

FOM (figure of merit) is used to determine the overall performance of the image intensifier tube and is calculated as a product of the image intensifier’s resolution and a signal-to-noise ratio. The value of FOM is easily calculated for all types of tubes from known measured values, it is a quantity that is used for measuring the effectiveness of a device, and for characterizing the output reliability of empirical models, and determine the functioning of the night vision devices.

Benefits of NVD’s with Higher FOM:

---It helps in providing a clearer image,

---In pitch dark conditions higher FOM makes target detection and recognition easily achievable.

---It also helps to differentiate between generations of II Tube.

Based on the above study, it is important to consider FOM while selecting the device as per the user's requirements.  MH Technology’s technically advanced Night Vision Devices provide a greater advantage to the soldiers in pitch dark conditions through higher FOM in the devices, this game-changing technology has effectively transformed the battlefield of the 21st century and given its user a clear-cut advantage over their adversary.