argos panoptes flies the friendly skies

[Eugen Leitl]

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/02/gigapixel-flyin.html

Special Forces' Gigapixel Flying Spy Sees All

By David Hambling EmailFebruary 12, 2009 | 8:47:00 AMCategories: Drones,
Gadgets and Gear, Planes, Copters, Blimps  

ArgusYou may think your new ten-megapixel camera is pretty hot b- but not
when you compare it to the 1.8 Gigapixel beast built for the Pentagon. The
camera is designed as a payload for the A-160T Hummingbird robot helicopter
now being quietly delivered to Special Forces. It will give them an
unprecedented ability to track everything on the ground in real time. The
camera is scheduled for flight testing at the start of next year. 

Developed under the auspices of Darpa, the camera is the sensor part of
Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System or
ARGUS-IS. The camera is composed of four arrays, each containing 92
five-megapixel imagers. The other parts of ARGUS are the airborne processing
system, which has to deal with a phenomenal torrent of data, and the
ground-based element. The airborne part fits into a 500-pound pod.

The Hummingbird is unique in its ability to hover at high altitude (over
15,000 feet) and its endurance of over 20 hours. This means it can park high
in the sky and scan a wide area. Robo-chopper camera-maker BAE Systems says
that its imager will be able to cover an area of over a hundred square miles.
The refresh rate is fifteen frames per second and a "ground sample distance"
of 15 centimeters b- this means that each pixel represents six inches on the
ground. (The Darpa diagram, above, suggests a smaller area of coverage, 40
square kilometers or 15 square miles, at that resolution.)

The volume of data is too great to be completely transmitted, but users will
be able to define at least sixty-five independent video windows within the
image and zoom in or out at will. The windows can be set to automatically
track items of interest such as moving vehicles. In fact, the resolution is
good enough for it to offer "dismount tracking" or following individual
people on foot.

In addition to the windows, ARGUS will provide "a real-time moving target
indicator for vehicles throughout the entire field of view in real-time."
Basically, nothing can move in the entire area without being spotted. Unlike
radar, ARGUS can zoom in and provide a high-resolution image.

The camera is pretty impressive, but it's the processing and the software
behind it that will make this such a capable system. It would take a human a
very long time to scan the whole area under surveillance if they were looking
for something b but this is exactly the type of task which the swarming
software we looked at last week excels at. Luckily enough, that just happens
to be a Darpa program too. The technique of looking at small windows of
interest also means that it may be possible to speed the frame rate up
considerably b we previously looked at a windowing system so fast it could
follow speeding bullets.

The ARGUS-IS mounted on the Hummingbird could be a significant battlefield
asset for getting a real-time picture of what's on the other side of the
hill. And no doubt there will be civilian agencies who think it might be
quite a useful capability for them to have too.

Mythological Footnote: Someone in Darpa may be a fan of the classics b Argus
or Argos Panoptes was a giant, unsleeping watchman with a hundred eyes all
over his body. Unfortunately he was killed by Hermes; according to the myth,
his eyes were placed on the tail of the peacock.