LightPath, Raytheon Vision Systems enter $1.1M development contract

Orlando, FL--LightPath Technologies (NASDAQ: LPTH) has entered into a $1.1 million research & development (R&D) contract with Raytheon Vision Systems (NYSE: RTN) to develop low-cost manufacturing processes for infrared (IR) optics. The contract is in support of Raytheon Vision Systems' $13.4 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Low Cost Thermal Imaging Manufacturing (LCTI-M) program, whose goal is to develop a wafer-scale manufacturing process that will result in a camera on a chip. This, in turn, will make thermal imagers affordable, accessible, and ubiquitous to warfighters.

Cost is a major barrier to further expand IR and thermal imaging technology into mission-critical defense and high-volume commercial applications, says Jim Gaynor, LightPath president and CEO. The lower-cost IR optics that should result from the company's work on the LCTI project may not only enhance warfighter capabilities, but could open significant new market and application opportunities in thermal imaging—like IR countermeasures, thermography, gas sensing, and commercial night vision systems—for the company, he says.

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