Hood Tech reveals airborne facial recognition capabilities
Hood Technology has announced that it has developed a new facial recognition capability utilising stabilised airborne video imagery in small, tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (TUAVs). The company made the announcement 9 July 2012.
Hood Tech's early 800-gm stabilized video turrets ‘created demand for an entirely new class of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)’, and the company is building on this to meet customer expectations with its newest product, the Alticam 09 EO+ payload. This payload extends EO optical zoom to 160X, and delivers a standard definition horizontal field of view of 0.3 degrees. The imagers are stabilised in HoodTech’s proprietary 4-axis gyro-stabilised gimbal design, and weighs approximately 3.5 kg.
According to the company, ‘NIIRS 8 imagery is no longer enough to stay ahead of expectations; we are now recognising faces and reading license plates from stand-off ranges beyond audible detectability. To achieve this, we have developed new imagers and have completely reinvented our stabilisation methods. Our stabilisation is now good enough that we can select a specific door when pointing a laser.’
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