{"id":89404,"date":"2018-02-27T10:54:01","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T10:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=33e3a97149574b46c70042f3914af237"},"modified":"2018-02-27T10:54:01","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T10:54:01","slug":"news-story-the-long-view-a-lifetime-of-work-in-optronics-is-recognised-in-annual-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=89404","title":{"rendered":"News story: The Long View – a lifetime of work in optronics is recognised in annual award"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Richard Hollins Senior Fellow, Cyber & Information Systems Department at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), has been recognised for his outstanding contribution to optronics.<\/p>\n

At a special award ceremony earlier this month, Dr Hollins was presented with the lifetime achievement award from OPTRO \u2013 the international symposium on optronics for defence and security – which recognises a significant contribution in the field of optronics.<\/p>\n

Optronics covers all the technologies that use light for information and processing \u2013 it includes lasers, detectors, cameras, sensors, optical communications.<\/p>\n

Richard brought new insights to the search for protection measures against lasers of any wavelength \u2013 a requirement which becomes ever more important as the variety of available laser wavelengths continues to increase. Some of his work has contributed to the revision of international laser safety standards, which control the use of lasers in laboratories around the world.<\/p>\n

It was the senior fellow\u2019s work in this and other areas which have contributed to innovation in optronics over several decades. Optronics provides what the eye can\u2019t see; imagery at a longer range than the eye can master, thermal images, infrared, radar, even camera images from low level light like star light \u2013 all vital for gathering information about an area or accurately identifying a target.<\/p>\n

Richard said:<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m very pleased to have the recognition of my career \u2013 I certainly didn\u2019t expect to get it \u2013 I expect I\u2019ll be retiring soon and I don\u2019t know how many more chances I\u2019d have for an award like that. I\u2019ve been fortunate to work with many colleagues at Dstl, in industry and academia, and in foreign government organisations, and I\u2019m grateful for all their contributions to the work.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Things have changed a huge amount \u2013 in the days when I started, lasers were inefficient, we were trying to develop them into things that we could use, but they\u2019ve needed to change considerably to the efficient compact devices we know today. I used to have to build 50,000 volt power supplies and today\u2019s devices use 10 volts or less.
\nLasers have found their way into many much smaller devices. Cameras themselves have also become much better and smaller \u2013 I have recollections of when you saw a TV camera or a thermal imager, it was a big thing with scanning optics that had to be wheeled around, and today all that complexity has been replaced by a small hand-held camera, and costs have come down.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The future of optronics continues to evolve \u2013 as a communications channel, optics is starting to offer secure directional communications with much higher bandwidth to open up new possibilities. It\u2019s always been difficult communicating with submarines as most electromagnetic wavelengths don\u2019t go through sea water \u2013 but lasers are now sufficiently good that progress is being made in this direction.
\nRichard is still actively involved in physics at Dstl.<\/p>\n

He said:<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t get into the lab much these days but I still inspire people as a mentor and help to work out how we should address new challenges. I take a lot of interest from understanding new scientific challenges through simple calculations. I produce simple theoretical models that are written on a few pieces of paper, and which relate the inputs to the outputs via the underpinning physics – and to me that\u2019s a really powerful way of understanding. More complex computer-based models can be useful too, but everybody should try my simple approach first.<\/p>\n

Dstl provides opportunities for a career with plenty of challenge: providing the science and technology required for our security and defence. We can\u2019t do all the work internally, but we select and work with the best partners. Our own work must be of the highest standard in order to understand the problem, to define the requirement and identify solutions, to manage the work as it proceeds, and to evaluate the products. My own career has enabled me to find ways to harness new developments in electro-optic technology to meet new military challenges.
\nMy award demonstrates the respect with which Dstl science is viewed within the scientific community.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senior Fellow at Dstl is recognised for outstanding contribution<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}