Wide area surveillance sensors prove value on battlefields.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Surveillance

* Heidi Breslow, a retired Marine Corps corporal and battlefield intelligence analyst, described how she would use unmanned aerial vehicles coupled with the latest wide area airborne surveillance sensors to help protect ground troops.

When Marines were transported by helicopter to conduct an operation the wide-angle camera provided a broad view of the area. Specialists such as herself watching the scene from a command center could search the surroundings for ambushes or any other dangers and alert the Marines on the ground.

If she did spot something suspicious, an unmanned aerial vehicle with a higher resolution camera could be flown in to take a closer look.

"Having both sensors at the same time is always better because you have that constant perimeter outlook," she said in an interview.

Many life-saving technologies such as drones, robots and mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles were rushed to battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade out of necessity. Wide area airborne surveillance,

while not as well known, made its debut in Iraq in 2005, and has also become an invaluable asset, providing a godlike view of cities and battle zones.

Unmanned aerial vehicles with day/night cameras and full-motion video have filled the skies, but they only provide what has been called a "soda straw" view of the battlefield.

That's fine when traveling down a narrow highway to search for improvised explosive devices. But this constricted point of view may miss insurgents laying in wait a few hundred yards off the road.

Wide area airborne surveillance, which may be onboard an aircraft circling a town or city, or on a tethered lighter-than-air blimp, also known as an aerostat, gives analysts and commanders offsite a persistent over-watch.

Not that these two sensors are competing.

"I think people are coming to understand that the soda straw sensor and wide area together are a powerful combination," said John Marion, director of persistent surveillance at Logos Technologies.

Logos manufactures the Kestrel, a surveillance system which is attached to a tethered blimp that hovers thousands of feet above an area.

The program originated in the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory a decade ago. The first iteration was the Constant Hawk, which was mounted on a manned aircraft. It was initially sent to Iraq for a three-month assessment, but it remained there for the next five years. There was a parallel program in Afghanistan.

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Kestrel...