Neat Tech

Specifically, among other whiz bang, they are using cell phone camera technology in order to make cheaper missile sensors: (paid subscription required)

One program singled out for praise is wavefront coding, envisaged as a way of potentially reducing weight and complexity of the seeker optics in the front of a weapon. The idea—which has been developed to keep cell phone cameras inexpensive—is being examined by experts from MBDA, Selex ES and two universities in Scotland. In current missiles, heavy optics are necessary because the seekers have to operate in a wide range of temperatures, requiring correcting lenses and complex surfaces in order to maintain acceptable performance.

Wavefront coding introduces a simpler seeker layout and software processing, eliminating the need for the correcting optics. Designers place a cubic phase mask in one of the optics , which disrupts and aberrates the normal image. But knowledge of the characteristics of the phase mask means that software processing can be applied to allow sharp images to be recovered, even for objects well outside of the conventional depth-of-field of the original optical arrangement. Engineers point out that this could help reduce weight of current missiles by as much as 10%.

I always wondered how cell phones managed to "focus".

I always figured that they weren't using conventional moving lenses, there is not a whole bunch of space for that, and mechanical actuators at that size could drive up the price.