Hood Tech Develop New Small-UAV Airborne Video Imager With Face Recognition

Hood Tech’s early 800-gm stabilized video turrets created demand for an entirely new class of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Image quality delivered at that time would be considered primitive today. A decade later, customer expectations have escalated; NIIRS image-quality metrics are now being applied.

According to Hood Tech’s Dr. Andy von Flotow, “NIIRS 8 imagery is no longer enough to stay ahead of expectations; we are now recognizing faces and reading license plates from stand-off ranges beyond audible detectability. To achieve this, we have developed new imagers and have completely reinvented our stabilization methods. Our stabilization is now good enough that we can select a specific door when pointing a laser.”