Innovations by Australian software companies have improved the military’s ability to track targets in difficult environment and rapidly disseminate data to analysts and deployed units.
More recently, Sentient Vision Systems and General Dynamics (GD) Mediaware combined forces to develop capabilities for UAVs to spot hard-to-see targets and to provide near real-time data analysis.
Sentient first developed its Kestrel Land MTI software under an Australian Defence Force Capability and Technology Demonstrator program in 2008 for use with the Boeing/Insitu ScanEagle UAVs, then being used in Afghanistan. Today, it is used on the Australian Army’s AAI RQ-7B Shadow 200 unmanned systems in theater, as well as the fixed-wing Lockheed Martin AP-3C Orions flown by the Air Force.
The latest version, Kestrel 3.0, was released in March 2012, and improvements include a tracking capability that allows operators to determine from where a target of interest has moved since it entered the field of view of the electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) sensors.
