Detectors & Imaging

Resolve Optics and IMAO awarded nearly $2M to develop gigapixel aerial surveillance camera

Dec. 13, 2017

The nearly $2 million dollar Horizon 2020 award expedites development of a 1 gigapixel aerial surveillance camera.

Ultralarge-format lenses are shown mounted in the B66 Aerial Surveillance camera.

Resolve Optics (Chesham, Bucks, England)in conjunction with IMAO SAS (Limoges, France) has received a nearly $2 million dollar Horizon 2020 award to expedite the development of a 1 gigapixel (GPixel) resolution ultralarge-format aerial surveillance camera. Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme with nearly 80 billion euro of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020).

Using ultralarge-format, low-distortion lenses custom designed by Resolve Optics, IMAO was able to create a prototype aerial surveillance camera. The companies say its patented design--which associates three optical chambers, a matrix of sensors, and three ultralarge-format lenses--represents a novel development in the field of aerial data acquisition.

The prototype 660 megapixel camera produces high-quality images two to three times larger than the standard image size generated by other large-format cameras on the market. As a consequence not only are less images required for geographic data mapping but also these images require less processing time, saving operators time and money.

Using the Horizon 2020 funding, the Resolve Optics/IMAO consortium aims to further improve the 660 megapixel resolution of the prototype camera to reach 1 Gpixel by 2020. With this ultrahigh-resolution capability, less aerial surveillance flights will be required to create better quality images for Google maps, construction sites, and other mapping and surveillance projects.

For further information on the B66 Aerial Surveillance Camera and the Horizon 2020 funded Aerial BCP project please visit www.imao-fr.com.

SOURCE: Resolve Optics; http://www.resolveoptics.com/2017/12/high-resolution-ultra-large-format-aerial-surveillance-camera/

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.