Military operators conducting clandestine missions at night use night vision goggles (NVGs) to provide enhanced vision without having to use visible auxiliary light sources. This capability is essential for completing missions and remaining undetected. Military divers also conduct clandestine missions at night, with the added challenge of being in the underwater environment. Ambient light such as moon light or star light is practically non-existent in poor visibility conditions at depth, and using auxiliary visible light sources in clandestine missions is not possible. In addition, due to the water/glass interface on the NVG objective lens curved surface altering the index of refraction, they do not perform effectively underwater. There is a critical operational need for military divers to have enhanced underwater night vision capability, similar to the capability afforded land-based operations. Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) is the US Navy's leading laboratory for conducting research, development, testing, and evaluation of diving and life support equipment, including diver visual display technologies. NSWC PCD was tasked under a special program to conduct testing on military night vision goggles to characterize their underwater performance, modify the night vision goggles to allow underwater operation, and conduct a limited qualitative underwater evaluation. This paper will describe the results of performance characterization testing, modifications performed on the NVGs, and results of the in-water evaluations.
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