General Atomic announced 7 August that it has successful flight-tested its Nightlighter airborne imaging system.
A prototype Nightlighter was tested on a Twin Otter aircraft during the Olympus Flight Test sponsored by the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) at China Lake, California. The company is developing a programme to deploy the system on a Hawker-Beechcraft King Air 350 aircraft.
Nightlighter, which has been in development since 2010, is a high-altitude airborne imaging system designed to detect improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
The system uses both normal cameras for operation in daylight and advanced night imaging technology to collect imagery in the dark.