New Camera Brings About Vast Improvement for Surveillance

Researchers at The University of Alabama in Huntsville have developed a wide-angle camera that will be able to provide security forces with the ability to monitor large areas through high-resolution images taken from a satellite or an airborne craft, according to researcher David Pollock.

It was Pollock who first discovered that if you point a large number of lenses toward a common point, and then make a small correction on each of the lenses, you provide a camera with capabilities that far surpass existing technologies.

"If you look at high-resolution images taken by satellite or aircraft, the field-of-view in those photographs is tiny," he said. "This camera provides anyone with the ability to view the entire scene and, simultaneously, zoom in closely on a certain area with very high resolution at real time."

Flying at an altitude of 15,000 feet, a developmental version of the camera can see a 21-kilometer diameter area with a resolution of 0.3 meters. As a comparison, most Google Earth imagery is 1 meter.

The optics systems patent shared by UAHuntsville and Sony Corp. provides this unique coverage and resolution, according to Pollock.

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