US-based ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) specialists Logos Technologies expects its new Kestrel Block-2 Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) ISR sensor to be ready for delivery within eight months of a customer contract, the company has revealed.
The Kestrel WAMI is an optronics system mounted on an aerostat which can gather video and still imagery. The system has been in service with US Army soldiers deployed to Afghanistan since 2012 and another, unnamed theatre, according to the company.
The Kestrel family can perform a 360-degree scan across an area of over 100 square kilometres (38.6 square miles) from an altitude of 9842 feet (3000 metres). The Kestrel WAMI’s software includes a so-called ‘trip-wire’, the company states, alerting the operator if something in a defined area of interest has moved and requires further analysis. The operator can also rewind through images to trace the movements of the vehicles or people of interest: “It is like Google Earth combined with TiVo (a digital video recorder)”, says Douglas H. Rombough, vice president of business development at Logos Technologies.
Logos Technologies is now promoting the Kestrel Bloc-2, also aerostat mounted, to international customers. Compared to the Kestrel WAMI, the Kestrel Bloc 2 is “lighter, with a reduced weight of 150 pounds/lb (68 kilograms/kg) to 80lb (36kg), has a better image resolution and covers larger areas,” continues Mr. Rombough. He added that there is currently a high level of international interest in acquiring the Kestrel Bloc-2, although he was unable disclose the identity of potential customers.
