Airborne Cameras

Overview Airborne Cameras
By Defense Advancement Last updated: December 3rd, 2024

Airborne Cameras & Aerial Surveillance Systems

Airborne reconnaissance equipment has been an essential part of military strategy and intelligence gathering since the First World War. Since then, and in line with technological developments, aerial surveillance has advanced to include new types of cameras and sensors.

Aerial surveillance is typically conducted by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones. This includes small, portable devices such as quadcopters, which can fit in a soldiers’ rucksack, and Personal Reconnaissance Systems such as miniature helicopters that can fit into a pocket or be mounted in clusters on vehicles. 

Optical Video Surveillance

Often aerial surveillance systems rely on video streaming to transmit images to tactical command centres. However, optical video surveillance has some shortcomings. 

While videos do provide detailed images, their small field of vision doesn’t always provide an accurate overview of the surroundings. They also struggle to produce clear and accurate images in suboptimal conditions, such as in darkness, smoke, or adverse weather.

For wide area surveillance, reconnaissance aircraft combine multiple sensors together in pods attached to their hulls in order to deliver a series of images that can be joined together to ensure long-distance coverage. These high resolution images can even allow for tracking of individual people.

These aircraft also include passive thermal infrared camera arrays that produce clear images even in bad weather conditions and darkness.

Products (12)

HD55

High-performance stabilized gimbal with advanced GPS-aided inertial navigation

High-performance stabilized gimbal with advanced GPS-aided inertial navigation
...cated with the cameras and features accuracy of down to 0.5 degrees, allowing the gimbal to provide...
HD80

Large-format gimbal with LWIR and MWIR thermal imaging options

Large-format gimbal with LWIR and MWIR thermal imaging options
...cated with the cameras and features accuracy of down to 0.5 degrees, allowing the gimbal to provide...
HD80-AIM

AI-powered wide-area maritime surveillance gimbal for manned & unmanned aircraft

AI-powered wide-area maritime surveillance gimbal for manned & unmanned aircraft
...ced stabilized camera gimbal system designed to search vast areas of ocean efficiently and...
HD95

Advanced tactical EO/IR gimbal payload purpose-built for US Army

Advanced tactical EO/IR gimbal payload purpose-built for US Army
...bal shutter EO camera, a best-in-class 0.9 FOV MWIR thermal camera, and an SWIR camera for see-spot...
HD25

Low-SWaP EO or EO/IR gimbal with geopointing capabilities

Low-SWaP EO or EO/IR gimbal with geopointing capabilities
...cated with the cameras and allows the gimbal to provide real-time geopointing and geolocation for...
HD40

Drone camera gimbal with powerful zoom and integrated laser pointer

Drone camera gimbal with powerful zoom and integrated laser pointer
...cated with the cameras and allows the gimbal to provide real-time geopointing and geolocation for...
HD45

Durable low-SWaP gimbal with optical zoom-capable EO and IR cameras

Durable low-SWaP gimbal with optical zoom-capable EO and IR cameras
... compact EO/IR camera gimbal housed in a machined magnesium enclosure with robust environmental...
ULTRIS X20

Combined UV-VIS-NIR hyperspectral snapshot camera

Combined UV-VIS-NIR hyperspectral snapshot camera
.... The advanced camera provides clean hyperspectral imagery out of the box with a native resolution... ......ions such as UUVs, enabling the camera to be submerged at depths of 10m for up to 10 hours...
ULTRIS 5

Ultra-miniature hyperspectral camera with 10 GigE connectivity option

Ultra-miniature hyperspectral camera with 10 GigE connectivity option
...ectral imaging camera, delivering a level of cost-effectiveness that competes with RGB and...
ULTRIS XMR

Advanced VNIR camera with 1MP native resolution & USB3 connectivity

Advanced VNIR camera with 1MP native resolution & USB3 connectivity
...eneration VNIR camera covering the 430 to 910 nm spectrum and offering an unprecedented 1 megapixel...
ULTRIS X20 Plus

High-resolution hyperspectral camera with panchromatic sensor

High-resolution hyperspectral camera with panchromatic sensor
...a panchromatic camera sensor, boosting the resolution of the spectral camera to 1880 x 1880 for...
ULTRIS SWIR1

Hyperspectral imaging & video solution with frame rate of up to 80 Hz

Hyperspectral imaging & video solution with frame rate of up to 80 Hz
...ctral snapshot camera that covers the 980 to 1650 nm range and delivers impressive frame rates of up...

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Cutting-Edge Visible & Thermal Imaging Camera Gimbal Payloads for Mission-Critical Applications

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State-Of-The-Art Hyperspectral Imaging Cameras for Mission-Critical Applications

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