Coming Soon to U.S. Air Force Screens: HDSeptember 10, 2010

 

While consumer televisions and video cameras have all gone High Definition (HD) the military lags behind with Standard-Definition (SD) video. This is no small problem given that HD video received from an unmanned drone can help a surveillance officer to distinguish between an insurgent's mug shot and that of a random bystander.

The U.S. Air Force said that soon they will replace the grainy feeds from UAVs to the type of crisp HD shots consumers enjoy on their home televisions, according to an article in Defense News.

"It's in the not-too-distant future," U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula recently said, shortly before retiring as deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. "We're working on HD capability right now."

What has kept the U.S. Air Force, which has the most advanced technology in the world in most areas, from matching simple consumer-grade technology in this area, and how will they get around those hurdles? Several companies are now working on pinpointing and solving the problems as follows:

Problem: Bandwidth Hog

Transmitting HD video requires a huge amount of bandwidth, a common commodity in most parts of the United States but rare on the battlefield.

Solution: Compression

Companies like Harris and ViaSat have developed encoders that compress an HD signal to make it as manageable as an SD signal. Other companies, like FLIR and L3 Communications, are building encoders directly into sensors, according to the article.

Problem: Bulk

HD sensors remain heavy and each pound reduces the amount of fuel drones can carry. Companies like L3 are working on cutting the weight of HD sensors and bringing them almost in line with SD sensors. Some problems are still being addressed. One of the biggest: How much electricity do HD sensors require?

"I think one that is missed often is you have the electrical generation capability to power it and all the other electrical systems on that aircraft," Brig. Gen. H.D. Polumbo, who oversees plans and programs for Air Combat Command, told the Air Force Times. "We found that repeatedly, in multiple platforms, that you don't always have a big enough generator to power a sensor."