Logos Technologies Introduces New Kestrel KS-200 WAMI Sensor
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Fairfax, Virginia-based Logos Technologies is debuting its new Kestrel KS-200 wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) sensor next week at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington.
The KS-200 is a smaller, lighter WAMI sensor than the previous Kestrel system, meaning it can be deployed on smaller and lighter aerostats.
However, due to improvements in components, it delivers slightly better performance than the older system, and for the first time is exportable as well.
“It has a little better resolution, a little larger area of coverage, and we cut the weight in about half,” said Doug Rombough, Logos’ vice president of business development.
The earlier Kestrel had six cameras, three day and three night; KS-200 has eight, with four electro-optical and four infrared. The infrared cameras are not the highest specification ones available, thus allowing for the system’s export, but the company could upgrade them for U.S. customers if desired.
Logos recently tested the KS-200 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, which went well, and a system could be delivered to a customer now within eight months, Rombough said.
Logos is a pioneer in the field of wide-area motion imagery sensing, which allows users to survey a medium-sized city, simultaneously tracking objects or people of interest. The systems’ ground control station allows for the monitoring of up to 10 video windows at once of certain areas, with rewind capability, which Rombough dubbed “Google Earth with TiVo capability.”
A related system, Simera, a 40-pound, daytime-only sensor, was operated by Brazilian authorities during the recent Olympics.
Logos has a record of making its systems smaller and lighter, allowing them to be used on ever-smaller platforms. In addition to Kestrel and Simera, it will also be displaying the Redkite RK-50 WAMI sensor at AUSA, which weighs as little as 20 pounds and can be carried on an unmanned aircraft.
“Every few years, you’re going to see us putting out a more capable, smaller size weight and power sensor,” Rombough said.
