Trillium Engineering successfully tests new video processor for tactical UAS

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Trillium Engineering, a developer of gimbaled camera systems for small UAS, has announced that it has successfully conducted a test flight of a new video processor that it says will “dramatically improve” the operation of Group 2 UAS.

According to Trillium, tactical UAS typically use full-motion video camera systems that rely on an H.264 video compression codec standard, which results in a picture that is “good enough” for close targets. When the UAS operates at long ranges from the ground station, though, the bit rate to the operator is reduced, resulting in important details in the imagery being fuzzy.

“You can’t tell, for example, if the person you are monitoring is holding a rifle or a shovel. This means that you have to scrub some missions because you can’t make a positive identification,”  explains Rob Gilchrist, president of Trillium Engineering.

To change this, Trillium plans on adapting its video camera systems to the “newer, more efficient” H.265 standard.

Just a few weeks ago, Trillium engineers equipped a Cessna aircraft with an HD80-MV gimbaled camera with a video processor designed to handle the new H.265 standard. The Cessna served as a test surrogate for a Group 2 UAS, and the HD80-MV was controlled from a laptop on the ground.

“When the plane was in the air, we reduced the bit rate to mimic a UAS that was further away,” Gilchrist says. “Then we switched the standard from H.264 to H.265. The difference in the picture was remarkable.”

Trillium notes that the streaming midwave IR and electro-optical imagery was 50 percent clearer than what cameras on Group 2 UAS usually produce.

Last fall, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory awarded Trillium a Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant that partially funded the airborne demonstration of the H.265 video processor for small, gimbaled cameras. Trillium says that the next step in the process is to showcase this new capability to UAS companies.

“We’ll be demonstrating our H.265 processing capability on multiple Group 2 platforms over the coming months,” Gilchrist says.