Sentient Vision’s Kestrel Maritime ViDAR (visual detection and ranging) will equip Australia’s new Challenger 604 maritime search and rescue aircraft.
Cobham Aviation, which holds the prime contract with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, chose the Kestrel system for the four Challenger 604 aircraft, according to a Sentient Vision news release.
“The Kestrel consists of a 9-megapixel optical sensor and onboard software that automatically detects and highlights sea surface objects invisible to the naked eye in real time,” Sentient Vision said. “In tests with the U.S. Coast Guard in 2014, the ViDAR system detected small boats at ranges in excess of 20 nautical miles that were optically invisible to the sensor operators. Each Challenger 604 will mount three fixed ViDAR sensors and an integrated processing system to cue the primary Wescam MX-15 sensor to detected objects.”
