Sensors Meeting

An advisory committee to the Commerce Department related to sensors and instrumentation plans to hold a "partially closed" meeting next week, according to a notice published in this morning's Federal Register:

The Sensors and Instrumentation Technical Advisory Committee (SITAC) will meet on November 8, 2012, 9:30 a.m., in the Herbert C. Hoover Building, Room 6087B, 14th Street between Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues NW., Washington, DC. The Committee advises the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Export Administration on technical questions that affect the level of export controls applicable to sensors and instrumentation equipment and technology.

The first portion of the meeting will be open to the public and include remarks from Commerce Department Industry and Security Bureau officials as well as industry presentations, with a closed session to follow, according to the notice.

Inside the Pentagon reports this week that Commerce has completed a night-vision industrial base review to inform the White House's export-control reform efforts amid calls from industry to permit more foreign sales of U.S. night-vision systems:

The "critical technology assessment," dated October, examines night-vision focal plane arrays (FPAs), sensors and cameras. Such reviews assess the impact of export controls on key existing or emerging technologies that are subject to the Commerce Department's export administration regulations.

The study -- based on a survey of 45 night-vision component and equipment manufacturers, divisions and sellers -- aims to determine the nature of night-vision sensor parts and imaging gear manufactured for military-use-only and dual-use (for both commercial and military use). The effort is intended to inform the Obama administration's push to create a single export control list. There are now two primary control lists, one overseen by the Commerce Department and another tied to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

About 38 percent of survey respondents sold some military-use-only night-vision parts and gear to the Defense Department, the report states. The largest number of companies sold military-use-only cooled infrared cameras to DOD.

Roughly 36 percent of survey respondents sold DOD some dual-use night-vision parts and gear. The largest number of companies sold dual-use image intensification tube (IIT) imagers to DOD.

And about 27 percent of survey respondents received some DOD research and development funding for recent night-vision products.

The number of companies selling night-vision components and gear to the Pentagon, coupled with the low levels of military-use-only exports, shows that most end-users are "not predominately or exclusively military," the report states. A former defense official said this finding reflects the widespread availability of low-level night-vision systems. The night-vision industry sees the ITAR as too vague and restrictive, the source said, noting there is an understanding that the most-capable systems should remain restricted but industry wants to be able to export more mid-level technology akin to what foreign defense contractors already market worldwide.

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