Logos Technologies to provide three Kestrel persistent-surveillance sensor payloads for Afghanistan
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J., 21 Sept. 2012. U.S. Navy persistent-surveillance experts are awarding a $28 million contract to Logos Technologies Inc. in Fairfax, Va., for three Kestrel surveillance and reconnaissance systems for deployment on aerostats and airships operating at altitudes between 1,000 and 5,000 feet off the ground.
The Logos Kestrel day/night wide-area persistent surveillance system is an imaging payload for helium-filled aerostats that remain aloft for about a month, and can store continuous video data for all of that time.
Aerostat-based wide-area surveillance is becoming particularly popular for the U.S. Army, which needs intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability that is quick to deploy, easy to relocate, and less expensive than orbiting satellites.
Logos specializes in intelligent persistent-surveillance technologies able to spot incidents of interest, interpret them, and link events before and after the incidents that can yield relevant intelligence information.
Logos will do the work as part of a Phase III Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project called Wide Area Video Image Storage Techniques. While the Navy initially released the contract amount at $21 million, a Logos company source confirms the amount actually is $28 million.
Awarding the contract were officials of the Naval Air Warfare Center Lakehurst at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. The U.S. Army will operate the Kestrel systems.
In addition to three Kestrel systems under terms of the contract, Logos also will provide integration support, field service representatives, operators, analysts, and trainers to support persistent threat detection system outside the continental U.S. -- primarily in Afghanistan.
Logos will do the work in Afghanistan, Fairfax, Va., and Raleigh, N.C., and should be finished in October 2013. For more information contact Logos Technologies online at www.logos-technologies.com, or the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Lakehurst online at www.navair.navy.mil/lakehurst.
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John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
