Aircraft

Helicopter flight trials for a high-altitude platform persistent surveillance technology could start in the first quarter of 2011 as part of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency programme led by UK technology company Qinetiq.

Qinetiq is leading DARPA's 33-month $22 million Large Area Coverage Optical Search While Track and Engage (Lacoste) programme's phase two, which is a follow-on to the $5 million phase one feasibility contract. The second phase covers the fabrication and flight testing of a Lacoste sensor module.

The sensor technology is based on "adaptive coded aperture imaging". This uses infrared modules, operating in the 3-5micron wavelengths that have an array of apertures that can be turned on and off to achieve their "coding".

Lacoste could allow large numbers of moving vehicles to be tracked day or night in different weather conditions over a area of 500km2 (310 miles²).

"When a car bomb exploded you could look back at the [recorded] imagery and watch it arrive and then back track it to its [point of origin] and watch other vehicles arrive at that location and track them back to where they came from," says Chris Slinger, Qinetiq's Lacoste programme principal investigator.

The high-altitude platform, which may be an airship or long-endurance unmanned air vehicle, would operate at 65,000ft (20,000m) where temperatures reach -80°C (-112°F). To cope with these temperatures further sensor development is required after the flight trials. Qinetiq expects work after the 2011 trials to be conducted under US Air Force or Army programmes.

Qinetiq is working with Goodrich ISR Systems, which is responsible for designing the optical system, assisting with concept of operations and architecture development and performing the laboratory testing and 2011 flight trial.