Advanced Airborne Sensor Successfully Tested

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A wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) sensor was flown successfully aboard an RQ-21A Blackjack unmanned aircraft at a test range in Oregon.

A WAMI sensor is an approach to surveillance, reconnaissance, and intelligence-gathering that employs specialized software and a powerful camera system to detect and track in real time hundreds of people and vehicles moving out in the open, over a city-sized area, kilometers in diameter.

The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command had recently awarded Logos Technologies a $5.3 million contract to develop more WAMI sensors for Navy and Marine users.

The test is part of the company’s ongoing effort to develop an ultra-light WAMI capability for the Blackjack and other small, tactical unmanned aircraft.

Logos has created a U.S. military version of BlackKite, currently called Cardcounter, an ultra-light (26 pounds) infrared WAMI system. Despite its low SWaP, BlackKite can detect and track in real time every significant target moving within a city-sized area, giving tactical operators a powerful, hereto unheard of, capability, according to suasnews.com.

In addition, thanks to the WAMI system’s multi-modal edge processor—which can store six or more hours of mission data — users on the ground can also access recorded imagery for on-the-fly forensic analysis.

The WAMI system views and records the entire area and can stream multiple real-time and recorded video ‘chip-outs’ down to handheld devices.

Logos was first tasked with converting their BlackKite system to meet government requirements in September 2019, with two units being produced for the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command. The follow-on $5.3 million development contract and March test flight are part of the same effort.