DARPA, BAE collaborate on UAV surveillance

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NASHUA, N.H., Sept. 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has contracted BAE Systems to develop a nighttime UAV surveillance system.

The contract to develop the advanced processor for the agency's Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance-Infrared, is worth $49.9 million. It follows BAE's development of DARPA's daytime persistent surveillance system.

ARGUS-IR will provide real-time, high-resolution, nighttime video surveillance capability for U.S. combat forces for detecting, locating, tracking and monitoring events on battlefields. It will be compatible with a variety of unmanned aerial systems.

BAE Systems' Electronic Solutions Sector will be responsible for the design, development, manufacture and test of the ARGUS-IR Airborne Processing Subsystem and will integrate a high-resolution infrared sensor subsystem over the course of the 32-month, eight-phase project.

BAE Systems' APS will process and store the imagery provided by the infrared sensor and downlink a minimum of 256 independent 640x480 video streams over a data link with a maximum effective bit rate of 200 Mbits per second, the company said. Each video window may be a "tracking video window" or a "fixed video window," according to DARPA's specifications.

The first test of the system is scheduled for the second quarter of 2012.