AUSA, Washington DC, October 2009: 360° surveillance provides effective situational awareness for armored vehicles crew. Perimeter surveillance utilizing peripheral cameras is becoming common with modern combat vehicles, employing forward looking thermal ‘driver vision enhancer’ and tail mounted camera covering the rear area. Adding side looking cameras to each flank complete the system’s 360° coverage. Individual images can be inspected by different crewmembers or be joined together into a panoramic view combining the detailed images, shared and displayed to all crew members.
Fused Vision Tailored for Tactical Vehicles
BAE Systems is offering a complete kit providing peripheral vision for tactical vehicles. ‘Fused Vision System’ (FVS) provides both forward and rear viewing imagery. The FVS consists of an imaging sensor module combined with the front marker-light assembly and blackout drive lamp and containing the fusion engine, the driver’s output display module, and the central interface module. For forward imagery, the modified marker light assembly is integrated with an uncooled, long-wave infrared sensor, a visible/near infrared camera, and an image fusion engine. The long-wave thermal imagery enables operation in complete darkness, supporting the daylight/low-light camera by eliminating blooming or halo. The combined sensor provides an improved situational awareness compared to thermal imagers as it covers the near infrared spectral range, where laser pointers, tracers, and target markers can be seen. The system’s 40° field of view parallels the properties of the Driver’s Vision Enhancer (DVE) for similar drivability. Rear visibility is provided by the Check-6 infrared camera system that is molded into the vehicle’s taillight housing. The rear view gives the driver and crew situational awareness for everything from backing up the vehicle to buttoned-up battlefield operations.
Panoramic Scanner
HGH Infrared Systems has developed the IR-360 – a high sensitivity, high speed cooled infrared camera which sweeps over 360° in one second, detecting and tracking multiple moving targets, in day or night, through fog, smoke or haze, detecting human movement in real time, beyond 1,000 meters. The system provides continuously updated 360°. thermal surveillance, providing automatic intrusion alerts, pointing to the target with GPS and vector data, and guiding other systems through the ‘slew-to-cue’ functionality, remotely directing long-range observation systems or weapon stations to engage the target. The system can be coupled with thermal/visual imaging system to support more detailed surveillance.
VipIR improves Thermal Vision
System can be integrated with the advanced VipIR embedded image processing system developed by IEC Infrared Systems that dynamically processes the image to present an optimal view under all visibility conditions. The VipIR supports for color visualizations of different thermal levels, to highlight specific elements in the image. This capability becomes useful when using the system’s digital zoom in ‘picture-in-picture’ investigation mode. When viewing a human target, concealed objects under the cloths can be viewed, as the system performs ‘smart fusion’, showing thermal imaging details superimposed on the background picture only with the ‘pixels of interest’, leaving the entire picture uncluttered.
