1.6 gigapixel military camera

<p>According to a BBC world news facebook post, the military is researching and now developing a 1.6 gigapixel camera for use in unmanned helicopter drones.<br>

One wonders how much 1.6 gigapixels, this is about 500 times more pixels than we have now, would cost and what its purpose is.<br>

Are they researching cameras to upgrade all their drones? How much is this technology? Will it filter down to the Japanese camera companies?<br>

What exactly is the resolution of spy satellites cameras? <br>

Do drones require high resolution? <br>

Does this resolution lend itself to night time and low light observation?<br>

I did not know that the digital cameras in drones needed such high resolution. It must make it harder to transmit, lots of bandwidth.<br>

Surely if the military is working on such resolution, if will be in our hands in decades.<br>

Matt</p>

<p> </p>

<p>For a drone like this, higher resolution means fewer passes to cover the same ground. A normal (military) plane takes something like 20-50 man-hours of maintenance per flight hour. A drone probably takes less than that, but it's still expensive enough to fly that if a higher resolution sensor can reduce the flying time needed, it can probably pay for itself pretty quickly.</p>

 

<b>Moderator's note:</b> This is not the place to discuss politics, military spending (which does not relate directly to the photographic topics at hand), or other non-photography topics.

<p>Unless my math is wrong, that's about 50 times not 500 times what's in non-military cameras, still a large multiple. 1.6GB divided by let's say a 24mb full frame sensor equals 67 times. The interesting wustion is how big of a camera. One could obviously add many 24MB sensors to a back plate/ But you'll need a much larger camera and lens to cover the area. I suspect that the military sensor's pixels are packed tighter than civilisn grade so the camera does not have to be so large, but probably a lot larger than a civilian would like to carry around in any case. One hopes the technology eveuntually passes down to civilian use like today's GPS systems and Teflon! </p>

<p>I imagine high resolution will allow such things as reading of licence plates and identifying individuals/targets on the ground; its pursuit can only mean the inadequacies of current imaging systems as it relates to mission needs. </p>

<p>Reading license plates and such will generally depend more on the optics than the sensor resolution. If the optics provide sufficient resolution, you'd be able to read a license plate with a fairly low resolution sensor -- you just wouldn't be able to fit very many readable license plates into a single picture.</p>

<p>The optical resolution involved will depend heavily on the height at which the drone flies. If it's (say) 3000 feet above ground level, and the camera is aimed 45 degrees forward, reading license plates is fairly possible -- at that distance, they subtend something like 15-20 arc seconds, so you'd need to resolve something like 3 or 4 arc seconds to make them reasonably readable. That's well within the range that astronomers resolve quite routinely.</p>

<p>On the other hand, if the drone is flying higher to keep from being seen/noticed, things could get tougher in a hurry. For example, at 10,000 feet above ground level, it would need to resolve something like 0.8 arc seconds. That's still probably theoretically possible, but starting to approach the very limits. Just for example, the Rayleigh limit works out to a minimum of about a 150mm diameter lens (e.g., a diffraction-limited 300mm f/2.0). Add in the fact that you also need to contend with roughly 14,000 feet of atmosphere and you'd almost certainly want (need?) something at least a little bigger to get the necessary resolution. To be entirely honest, I'm not at all sure any lens could really do it very reliably.</p>

<p>The BBC piece can be referenced here ~: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16358851"><strong>US Army unveils 1.8 gigapixel camera helicopter drone.</strong></a></p>

<p>Here are some tech details on the sensor:<br>

<a href="http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4518090">http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4518090</a></p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"The camera is made up of 368 5-megapixel video chips mounted in four separate cameras. The images from each camera then are merged into a single large, high-definition image.<br>

BAE describes the camera as "a high-resolution, extreme wide-area, real-time video sensor" that provides "significantly greater video coverage" than any current airborne sensors."</p>

</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"Transmissions to the ground are managed by an onboard processor that extracts detailed video images of the areas of interest from the camera, compresses them into transmittable size and sends them as video streaming at the rate of 15 frames per second.<br>

The processor is basically "a big parallel computing system," Antoniades said. It incorporates 28 parallel processors - a combination of PC-like embedded computer chips, other chips called field programmable gate arrays, and video compression chips.<br>

The result is a machine that can handle 400 gigabits of data each second, he said."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Don't forget that such a camera may not have a single sensor or even a single lens. With digital photography it's easy to stitch. Also a multiple lens/sensor camera may provide an output that is simply superior to any single lens/sensor system we have today - simply by using similar techniques they use in astronomy where they use multi-dish arrays.</p>

<p>Hmm I wonder what type of computer you are going to need to edit a couple of those 1.6GB shots. My computer RAM is only 4GB... </p>

<p>A multiple lens/multiple sensor arrangement is the only practical way to get this kind of resolution. A 24 MP sensor is starting to challenge the resolution of common camera lenses. The resolution of any lens is limited by its aperture and aberrations. Supposedly, spy satellites can read the headlines of newspapers on the ground from an orbit 100 miles high. This requires a very large diameter optic several meters across. </p>

<p>That's pretty cool that they watch a wide field but only transmit 15 frames per second video of a section of the image the operator designates. But still, 400 gb / s? That's one heckuva WiFi link! ;)</p>

<p>And it can resolve people from 20,000 feet! that defensenews link was interesting.</p>

<p>So basically they're just stacking a bunch of 6mb sensors in multiple cameras in a 15 foot pod rather than some new technology that has more pixel density in the sensors. Might be a little hard to carry with you on your next photo shoot. I guess we'll have to wait for commercial applications to get to higher resolution sensors. The military suppliers apparently aren't there yet.</p>

<p>Alan, the military typically has special needs beyond what we might imagine. Their vendors will also use proven Mil-Spec parts often from the same suppliers as commercial cameras.</p>

<p>Wescam is apparently a common fixture on U.S. military flight vehicles armed with multiple sensors to give it Infrared, day/night vision, color/monochrome, and laser sighting capability. I imagine the 1.6G camera fixture will need to meet similar requirements. <br>

<a href="http://www2.l-3com.com/wescam/products/mx20truehd.asp">http://www2.l-3com.com/wescam/products/mx20truehd.asp</a></p>

<p>Here's an interesting video on the Wescam camera:<br>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT3EXiVhghQ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT3EXiVhghQ</a></p>

<p>If you are on a trip to find out whether your neighbour is ready to launch those nuclear weapons he has been developing I suppose it is worth taking along your best camera.</p>