Robocopters to Spot Pirate Boats

摘要

The U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research is scheduled to begin tests this summer on a sensor package designed to allow robotic helicopters to pick pirate boats out of a crowd. The Multi-Mode Sensor Seeker (MMSS) is a mix of high-definition cameras, mid-wave infrared sensors, laser detection and ranging (LADAR) and target recognition software. An MMSS prototype will be integrated onto a Fire Scout robocopter to prove it can distinguish target boats in congested coastal waters and send that information to human operators, who then will analyze the vessels in a 3-D picture.