We have a very strong presence these days in free space optical communication, primarily in space, and that ties very much directly into some of the quantum communication, and also indirectly into some of the quantum sensor work that’s being worked on by many companies, Infleqtion being one of them. And we’re always very, very happy to see optics find — finding more uses in more places. It’s — to me, I get an extreme joy out of even the simplest thing, where seeing that the quantum engine might be replacing something as simple as a radio receiver soon and that’s mind blowing to see optics play a role in something like radio communication.
Gene Inger: Can any of this relate as well to enemy submarines and to detection systems, because I know you’re doing spacecraft linkage and communication. You haven’t really touched on that with any more specificity. Can you elaborate?
Sam Rubin: Yeah. We have actually a couple of camera systems that are, one of them we’re going to, any day now, I think, a version of Mantis that we’re going to release, that are of extreme interest for threat detection, counter UAS detection, detection of cruise missiles as they come in and other things. All of those, we have two camera systems — two separate camera systems that we’re working with customers on that show very, very promising results in that direction.
Gene Inger: Do these relate to the U.S. Navy licenses we haven’t heard much more about?
Sam Rubin: Yeah. The U.S. Navy license enables a lot of that, and as I mentioned, we expect within the next two weeks, three weeks to release the first material formally from the Navy license, the BDNL-4, but in reality, the Mantis camera has already been using those materials for over a year now. We simply are now formally announcing it, that the material is available to others.
Gene Inger: I think you have mentioned 100 to 200 Mantis cameras likely produced or sold this year. Does this year mean fiscal year? Are you talking about this calendar year?
Sam Rubin: This fiscal year. Pretty much on track for that, I think.
Gene Inger: Okay. Now I would like to ask you just an overview. The military has been stunned by the Gaza War and by Ukraine, because they see the swarming of drones and how that offsets not only jet fighter aircraft, and maybe you’re working on the F-35, maybe not, the improvements, but also there — you don’t want to fire a million-dollar missile to intercept a $5,000 cheap drone. That we’ve learned in the Red Sea. So I wonder whether LightPath benefits or suffers from the prospect of fewer costly missile systems that would intercept or work autonomously in the future?
Sam Rubin: Yeah. Yeah. Well, once we are done with the development of the Lockheed missile and hopefully once we have a missile that is awarded to Lockheed, my personal wish is that they fire a missile on everything they see, a drone or even a butterfly. But realistically, I think, what we’re seeing is, a very strong drive towards integrating more and more passive detection capabilities such as infrared cameras for detecting some of those drones. Today you simply cannot use a radar for detecting the drones coming in. That’s something that Ukraine has taught us and have learned, unfortunately, in a very hard way. Israel doesn’t suffer that because they’re fighting an adversary that is a terror organization and not a state.
But in Ukraine-Russia war, for example, in what is called a near adversary or an adversary that has capabilities close to yours, you suddenly realize you cannot use a radar to detecting drones because the moment you turn it on, a missile is locked onto the radar and will hit you within minutes, seconds and so the use of cameras is very important. Two of our cameras that I mentioned for detecting threats from a distance, one version of Mantis and one version of a different camera, are of extreme importance, because they can do that in $10,000 as opposed to a $50,000 camera that is often used today. So I think we have something very unique there that will pay off really well.
Gene Inger: Sam and Al, thank you. I feel better and I appreciate the aspirational goals that you have outlined in the presentations as well lately. And I know it takes time and I know how hard it is. So good luck and we’ll keep watching you.
Sam Rubin: Thank you, Gene.
Al Miranda: Thank you, Gene.
Sam Rubin: Very well.
Gene Inger: You too.
Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Sam Rubin for any closing remarks.
Sam Rubin: Thank you. I appreciate everyone joining the call and the patience that our shareholders show as we are not only turning around the company but also plotting the new direction and now finally delivering on it big time. The Lockheed Martin, the automotives, the cameras, each one of those are tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue that will be coming down the road. Very big deal. The company is going to look completely different a few years from now and I’m excited to continue along this path. Thank you, everyone.
Operator: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
