View from aircraft equipped with sensors for surveillance.

Advanced Electro-Optical Systems

We focus on rapidly developing and then field-testing innovative sensor systems used by the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, NASA, and other U.S. government agencies to gather data for the persistent surveillance of wide areas in space and on the earth. To design and build prototypes of these systems, our staff leverage a broad range of technologies: electro-optics, infrared sensors, novel focal plane arrays, embedded processors, video analytics, and image processing. We work closely with the end users of systems to ensure that new systems provide high-quality, relevant information, and we are able to respond quickly to improve our systems to meet users' needs.

Featured Projects

a photo of a small satellite in a studio
weather
A constellation of small satellites is collecting rapidly refreshed weather data to advance studies of hurricane structure and intensity and improve forecasts.
The MASIVS sensor uses four focal planes.
surveillance
An airborne system provides high-resolution wide-area video imagery and onboard data processing to enable real-time monitoring of suspicious human activity.
SensorSat was launched and deployed into orbit from this Minotaur IV rocket. Photo courtesy of Orbital ATK
space situational awareness
A small satellite is providing imagery of a big swath of near-space.

Advancing Our Research

Featured Publications

Pixel-processing imager development for directed energy applications

Aug 26
Directed Energy Systems Symposium, 26-29 August 2013.

Time delay integration and in-pixel spatiotemporal filtering using a nanoscale digital CMOS focal plane readout

Nov 1
IEEE Trans. on Electron Devices, Vol. 56, No. 11, November 2009, pp. 2516-2533.