SPIE Defense & Security Symposium Offers Largest Sensors and Infrared Imaging Event in North America

BELLINGHAM, WA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- March 29, 2007 -- SPIE Defense & Security Symposium, the largest unclassified conference and exhibition covering sensor technology for military and homeland security applications, is set to open in Orlando, Florida on April 9. More than 5,000 scientists, engineers and military personnel will attend 1,800 presentations, 55 courses and workshops and see new products from 400 suppliers, including the biggest infrared technology exhibit in the world. Evening speakers include former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig; author, venture capitalist and detection-technology executive Mark Mills, Chairman of ICx; and Major General Steve Reeves, Joint Program Executive Officer for Chemical and Biological Defense, U.S. Department of Defense.

The Defense & Security Symposium provides the latest technical developments in sensors and sensor networks. Plenary speakers on April 11 include John M. Myers, Harvard Univ., speaking about sensing in the language of quantum mechanics. A Tactical Sensors and Imagers plenary talk, "Broadband Terahertz Wave Photonics for Defense and Security Applications," will be presented by Xi-Cheng Zhang, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Trends for information delivery using head-up displays, helmet-mounted displays and hand-held displays will be covered in a third plenary by H. Lee Task, Task Consulting, discussing human visual perception in a talk, "Pixels, People, Perception, Pet Peeves and Possibilities: a Look at Displays."

Technical group meetings on Unattended Ground Sensors, Automatic Target Recognition, Global Homeland Security, Government Programs, Biometrics, Thermal Imaging, and Challenges Representing Uncertainty in Applications are among the many topics and networking opportunities of interest to technologists and military planners. In addition, a Forensics Workshop covers state-of-the-art methods using DNA identification, facial recognition and trace element analysis.

Presenters from the military, research labs, DARPA, and industry, participate in technical conferences organized by topic: Technologies for Homeland Security and Law Enforcement; IR Sensors and Systems Engineering; Tactical Sensors and Imagers; Laser Sensors and Systems; Battlespace Technologies; Space Technologies and Operations; Displays; Intelligent and Unmanned Systems; Modeling and Simulation; Sensor Data Exploitation and Target Recognition; Information Fusion, Data Mining, and Information; Networks Security; Signal, Image and Neural Networks Processing; and Communications and Networking Technologies.

The Defense & Security Symposium features 400 exhibitors of components, products and systems spanning optical technology, photonics, sensors, lasers, specialized lenses and other equipment. Having all the key suppliers in one place provides an efficient way to see the latest technology and discuss requirements with developers. Participating companies range from the largest defense contractors to start-ups with disruptive innovations and new capabilities for the defense and security arena.

One registration fee allows attendees to select from over 1,800 presentations and includes many opportunities for personal networking and face-to-face conversations with top researchers, potential collaborators, customers, and suppliers.

Full details about the technical program, executive forum and exhibition are online now at http://spie.org/events/dss

SPIE is an international society advancing an interdisciplinary approach to the science and application of light. SPIE organizes events including SPIE Advanced Lithography, Photonics West, Photomask, OptiFab, Defense & Security Symposium, Optics & Photonics, Optics East, Photonics Europe and many others. SPIE also publishes journals, books and conference proceedings, with over 235,000 technical papers available for download via the SPIE Digital Library. See SPIE.org for details.

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