Sentient Vision Systems has signed an exclusive global distribution agreement
with Insitu for the ViDAR (Visual Detection and Ranging) software to
be incorporated within the company's unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
Insitu
will incorporate the ViDAR payload into its fleet of unmanned
systems, beginning with its ScanEagle unmanned aircraft. The ViDAR
software is built into the ScanEagle payload by Hood Technologies.
ViDAR
is a wide area autonomous detection system for electro-optic imagery
in the maritime domain enabling coverage over 80 times the ocean’s
surface compared with existing electro-optic sensors. ViDAR
transforms the utility of tactical UAS’s by giving them a ‘find’
function for the first time. Operators typically must rely on larger,
more expensive aircraft to detect objects in the ocean; ViDAR
provides the find capability in a smaller, more cost-effective
payload.
“The
inability to find objects on the ocean’s surface has placed a huge
limitation on the utility of tactical UAS.” said Simon Olsen,
Sentient’s Director of Business Development, Strategy and
Partnerships. “Fast boats, rubber rafts or even a person in the
water – ViDAR finds them all – and does so at a fraction of the
size and cost of existing technologies.”
Sentient’s
ViDAR software autonomously detects any object on the surface of the
ocean, providing the ground control station with an image and
location coordinate of each object detected in real time. In
demonstrations, ViDAR has autonomously detected a fishing vessel at
14 nautical miles, a fast boat at more than 9 nm and even the spout
of a whale at 1.5 nm from the aircraft.
