ARGUS-IS

The ARGUS-IS, or the Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System, is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project contracted to BAE Systems. According to DARPA: "The mission of the Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System (ARGUS-IS) program is to provide military users a flexible and responsive capability to find, track and monitor events and activities of interest on a continuous basis in areas of interest.

The overall objective is to increase situational awareness and understanding enabling an ability to find and fix critical events in a large area in enough time to influence events. ARGUS - IS provides military users an "eyes-on" persistent wide area surveillance capability to support tactical users in a dynamic battlespace or urban environment."

The contract was awarded in late 2007 with a budget of US$18.5 million and duration of 30 months.

The three principal components of the ARGUS-IS are a 1.8 Gigapixels video system plus two processing subsystems, one in the air and the other located on the ground.

The sensor uses four lenses and 368 cell phone cameras, 5 megapixels each.

The first test flight using a UH-60 Black Hawk was declared a success by BAE in February 2010.

The Boeing A160 Hummingbird was to eventually be used as a platform for the airborne video sensor and processor.

A demonstration of the system was made available to the PBS NOVA program and used in a story on UAVs.