Sagem was the first to develop optronics in France (components and systems) in the late 1940s. It has maintained and reinforced its leadership position over the past 30 years with innovative developments in so-called third-generation components and systems.
As with navigation, where Sagem's development has been based on state-of-the-art technology (gyroscopy and the even more advanced inertial navigation), Sagem's optronics branch offers a whole range of performances and applications.
It covers small night-vision binoculars, sometimes used for piloting aircraft, right up to star-fix navigation periscopes for large submarines, and including the "optronics sphere" enabling helicopters to detect fires or intrusions along with ground or naval anti-aircraft protection systems.
Sagem optronics are used in the following fields:
Air-land defense (civil defense, helicopters and the "network centric warfare" military concept)
Naval air defense: ships, submarines, aircraft carriers, mainly for tracking and defense
Ground defense: all civil and military vehicles, particularly for surveillance
Aerospace: on-board optronics on military aircraft and missile homing devices.
Space: Sagem specializes in supplying systems (electrical, mechanical and optical) for mirrors in very large telescopes, such as the one currently being built in the Canary Islands.
The highly diverse applications of optronics for air-land defense also include equipment for the foot soldier of the future (FELIN program), particularly helmet equipment, its means of observation and its weapons sights.
Vectronix, a subsidiary of Sagem, specialises amongst other things in small integrated portable equipment (binoculars/GPS/goniometers/rangefinders).
Sagem also very often uses lasers in rangefinders and target designation and, in a completely different field, contributes to the highly sophisticated optical systems used in the megajoule laser.