Eurosatory 2018: Thales lifts curtain on Sophie Ultima thermal imager.

At Eurosatory 2018, Thales is taking its Sophie range of thermal imagers to the next level at Eurosatory and presents for the first time Sophie Ultima, a lightweight very high-performance 4-in-1 thermal imager. The new product is ready for connected combat and augmented reality and will help to guarantee tactical superiority both night and day.

Thales' new Sophie Ultima thermal imager

Sophie Ultima represents a new generation of 4-in1 thermal imaging devices for dismounted soldiers. It combines tactical binoculars, an infrared target locator, a daytime laser range finder and a teleconverter into a single piece of equipment, significantly reducing size and weight while delivering even higher performance. At 2.5 kg, Sophie Ultima meets the need to progressively reduce the weight of the equipment deployed by armed forces.

Providing significant tactical advantages at night, it makes target identification possible over distances at which competing equipment can only recognise the target type. Most importantly, Sophie Ultima also provides tactical advantages in daytime operations by combining a high performance glass day channel with the detection capabilities of infrared imaging. Through its ability to detect body heat at ranges exceeding 1 Km, this technology will allow soldiers to decamouflage potential enemy soldiers that would previously have been invisible to the naked eye.

With Sophie Ultima, Thales proposes a thermal imager with expanded functionality and augmented performance. This enables it to deliver the benefits of collaborative combat such as augmented reality in a digitalised theatre of operations. Soldiers are able to detect sooner and engage faster, and as a result, strikes are faster, safer and more precise.

The product architecture is fully modular to accommodate future operational requirements and technologies, and includes the new “eXtension” concept, a family of plug & play accessories for future capability upgrades, such as SWIR, communication module, laser designator and laser pointer.

Sophie Ultima offers a significantly reduced instruction, training and support footprint thanks to common user interfaces and shared maintenance solutions, while still ensuring that suitable equipment is available for each task and mission. The new Sophie family will cover the needs of operational units from squadron leaders to Special Forces.

In recent years, Thales has sold 15,000 Sophie thermal imagers in 55 countries.

"The armed forces rely on Thales for its expertise in the connectivity, big data, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity technologies that are key to their digital transformation. With Sophie Ultima, the soldier of the future will master the art of collaborative combat day and night," said Jean-Pascal Arrou-Vignod, Vice President, Optronics, Thales.