Army Purchases Flight Landata's BuckEye System
to Spot Bombs in Iraq

Mass. system spots bombs in Iraq 

HIAWATHA BRAY / Boston Globe 7oct2006

The Pentagon called it ``Little Baghdad"—a stretch of road on a US Army proving ground in Yuma, Ariz., designed to look like a highway in Iraq. When it was created in early 2004, the simulation was perfect, right down to 19 simulated explosive devices, one hidden in the carcass of a donkey.

The US Army constructed Little Baghdad as a testing site for technologies that could help identify the deadly improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that have killed hundreds of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. When the tests were complete, the Army gave top marks to a system from Flight Landata Inc. , a privately held firm in North Andover whose airborne digital camera, mounted in a plane or helicopter, can spot IEDs a thousand feet away. In the Yuma test, it correctly identified 17 of the 19 bombs, including the one in the donkey.

``That earned us an all-expenses-paid trip to Iraq," said Flight Landata president Brooks Patterson . Before the end of 2004, the North Andover company's BuckEye system was on duty, and it is credited with saving lives. In one area near the restless city of Mosul, the company said, the number of attacks with improvised explosive devices dropped from 65 a week to four after BuckEye-equipped aircraft began running surveillance missions.

``We are a satisfied customer of the system," said Captain James Richards , a research and development coordinator for the US Army Corps of Engineers. ``It's doing the job." Richards declined to provide details about lives saved or disasters averted by the BuckEye system, citing operational security.

At least two other companies — Leica Geosystems AG of Switzerland and Applanix Corp. of Canada — make geo-referencing aerial photo gear for commercial applications. But the two companies lost out to Flight Landata after all three systems were tested in the sky over Little Baghdad.

So far, the Army has purchased four BuckEye units, which carry a base price of half a million dollars but sell for much more when loaded with additional sensor packages. The Army has purchased versions with several accessories, but the company did not detail the features the military has ordered.

The military applications are the most dramatic uses of Flight Landata technology, but not the only ones. The company is now marketing its products to the private sector, aiming to sell high-resolution survey data to agribusinesses, urban planning agencies, and real estate firms.

In flights over the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico in November, the company will be testing its system for possible use in space exploration. The BuckEye system will try to spot water in the mouths of caves. NASA scientists have identified similar caves on the Martian surface, and any water in them could be an incubator for alien life. If the BuckEye passes the terrestrial test, a future version might be sent to the red planet.

The idea behind BuckEye might seem obvious: Take multiple aerial photos of the same spot, then examine the images for telltale changes. If freshly turned dirt appears by the side of the road, or a dead donkey moves, it might signal where an explosive device has been hidden. But it requires extreme precision. ``If you want to do this, the image has to be precisely 3-D geo-referenced," said Xiuhong Sun , Flight Landata's chief scientist. In other words, precise geographical data must be embedded into the picture, so the latitude and longitude of every building, car, tree or dead donkey are determined. When a bomb is detected, disposal teams are dispatched to clear the road of explosives.

This was far beyond Flight Landata's capacity when it was founded as an aerial photography company 12 years ago. But Sun joined the company in 1995, after completing post-doctoral research in remote sensing technology at the University of Dundee in Scotland. He's spent years developing the geo-referencing techniques that make Flight Landata's images so valuable.

The company's first big infusion of government money came in 2002, when it won a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop the system for earth sciences research. ``We require instruments like these to calibrate the spaceborne instruments," said Patrick Coronado, senior engineer at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. ``They were one of the first to geo-register the data in real time."

NASA later kicked in another $600,000 to pay for the company's first complete system. NASA combines the geo-referenced images from the BuckEye with its satellite images to produce more detailed surveys of the planet.

BuckEye's relatively simple camera is bolted into a modular platform that uses global positioning systems to geo-reference every picture it takes. Then pictures of the same spot taken hours or days apart can be easily compared, or even laid right on top of one another. The pictures are sharp enough to detect objects as small as a centimeter — about the size of a penny — so changes on the ground are easy to see.

BuckEye also supports laser-based elevation measurement technology, allowing the camera to take three-dimensional images of landscapes or cities. And it boasts ``hyperspectrum" sensors that can detect electromagnetic frequencies far beyond those of visible light. This enables the system to spot threats invisible to the naked eye, such as camouflaged vehicles.

Richards said that in addition to searching for IEDs, the Army uses BuckEyes to generate three-dimensional maps of urban areas before sending in troops. The camera's images are far superior to those offered by intelligence satellites in space, and the 3-D feature lets battle commanders electronically ``drive" down a dangerous street and identify every possible hazard along the way.

``We've done a whole bunch of cities in Iraq and also in Afghanistan," Richards said. ``You know better what you're going into before you go into an operation."

source: http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/10/07/mass_system_spots_bombs_in_iraq?mode=PF 7oct2006

BuckEye 

Flight Landata website 7oct2006

Designed specifically for light fixed and rotary wing aircraft, these are best-in-class fully integrated aerial imaging systems. Built around Flight Landata’s proprietary Precision Geo-Referenced Digital Airborne Camera System (PG-DACS) technology, the BuckEye family of products is standard production high-resolution digital photogrammetric instruments with precision georeference capabilities. Complete with multispectral and hyperspectral instrumentation, these system packages feature the:

• Finest spatial resolution achievable in aerial digital imagery
• Largest frame size of a single snapshot
• Fastest throughput and recording capacities for high temporal resolution and large area flyover

BuckEye sensor systems are seamlessly integrated with a differential corrected Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to provide better than 1 meter georeference accuracy. They are capable of acquiring large format color contiguous stereo pair sequences with high spatial resolution of down to 1 inch resolution. With recording rates of better than one frame every 2 seconds, BuckEye sensors are capable of recording thousands of digital images per flight at altitudes from a few hundred feet to higher than 10 thousand feet.

The BuckEye sensors are currently offered in two configurations that are based on PG-DACS-22M (22 million pixel frame size) digital camera technology. BuckEye IA systems are designed to be operated using available power on light fixed or rotary wing aircraft, while the BuckEye IB may be flown as self-contained cargo with its own power supply. System packages based on PG-DACS-39M (39 million pixel frame size) digital camera technology will be available shortly.

source: http://www.flidata.com/products/buckeye.html 7oct2006

Company Overview

Flight Landata, Inc. (FLD) is the leading provider of airborne high resolution digital imaging systems and services. The company designs and builds compact remote hyperspectral, multispectral and high-resolution digital imaging systems suitable for light aircraft and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Imagery acquired by FLD’s aerial sensor systems is used to create extremely detailed photogrammetric images, digital elevation models and to perform rapid change detection analysis for a variety of applications in the government and commercial sectors. FLD is a full service provider with world-wide capabilities to “fly a complete mission” including planning, data collection, processing and analysis.

Founded in 1991, Flight Landata is a privately held company serving intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance professionals, urban planners, oceanographic and atmospheric researchers as well as commercial clients in the security, forestry and agriculture businesses.

The company has been awarded three patents with additional patents pending for its innovative computing solution that seamlessly integrates imaging and georeference capabilities into a single operational system. Our remote sensors have been certified AWR (Air Worthiness Release) by the U.S .Army and have captured hundreds of thousands of images in Iraq and beyond to successfully support mapping, targeting, damage assessment and IED (improvised Explosive Device) defeat missions.

Recently, the company received the prestigious Tibbetts Award for technological innovation for its work on a variety of projects, programs and collaborative research efforts with the National Aeronautic And Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Develop Center (ERDC).

source: http://www.flidata.com/about/index.html7oct2006

Management Team

• Donald Florence, Chairman and Chief Executive  Officer 
  Don has been the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the past 14 years and a principal shareholder. Under Don's leadership over the past three years, FLD first successfully developed the advanced remote sensing technology and then transitioned from a research and development organization to an emerging full service, solution based company. Don's vision and focused strategy of developing Airborne Remote Systems for the Department of Defense has proven to be highly significant in creating a stream of contract revenue and profitability. Prior to FLD, Don founded, grew, managed and successfully sold several companies at substantial gains. Don served as the "hands-on" President and CEO of these companies and as an active Board Member of the acquiring publicly held companies.
• Brooks Patterson, President and Chief Operating Officer 
  Mr. Patterson is responsible for the overall management of Flight Landata's worldwide operations. Prior to joining Flight Landata, Mr. Patterson was a Principal with the management consulting firm PRTM where he provided advice and interim management services to high technology companies that resulted in rapid growth and increased profitability. He has held a variety of senior management positions in several highly successful businesses, where he was directly responsible for the scale-up of operations to facilitate explosive growth. Mr. Patterson earned a BA in Economics and History at Colby College and an MBA from Emory University.
• Dr. Xiuhong Sun, Chief Scientific Officer 
  Dr. Sun leads Flight Landata’s research and development operations. He joined Flight Landata as the Vice President of Research and Development and was elected to the Board of Directors in 1996. Dr. Sun is a recognized expert in the area of airborne hyperspectral and multispectral remote sensing, with many papers widely published and is a frequent featured speaker at conferences. He holds several patents and earned his PhD in Remote Sensing from the University of Dundee, Scotland.
• James Baker, Vice President of Business Development 
  Mr. Baker spearheads Flight Landata’s business development activities. Prior to joining Flight Landata, Baker served as the Vice President of Technical Development and then the Senior Vice President of Customer Support at Cullinet Software Corporation. Earlier in his career he held a variety of positions at the MITRE Corporation and with IBM’s Cambridge Programming Group. Mr. Baker earned an MS in Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and conducted PhD work in Mathematic Logic at Harvard University.
• William Chen, Director of Technical Operations 
  Mr. Chen manages the company’s technical operations. He played an integral role in qualifying and subsequently deploying Flight Landata’s BuckEye System to coalition forces in Iraq. Prior to Flight Landata, he fulfilled a variety of technical roles in several small and emerging businesses. Mr. Chen earned a BS in Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Frank Rose, Director of Flight Operations and Chief Pilot 
  Mr. Rose is responsible for the overall management of Flight Landata’s domestic and international flight operations. Prior to joining Flight Landata, Mr. Rose held a variety of senior aviation positions with responsibilities for flight operations, most recently with Blackwater Aviation. He has over 25 years of aviation and national security experience. Mr. Rose spent the majority of his career with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the Aviation Field Division, where he planned, managed and conducted airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions throughout the world. Before this work, Mr. Rose held positions with the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Maryland State Police. He is a certificated flight instructor and holds a variety of licenses and privileges for both single and multi-engine aircraft. Mr. Rose is a graduate of Loyola College and the Aviation Management Program at the University of Southern California.

source: http://www.flidata.com/about/management.html 7oct2006

Surveillance + Reconnaissance

Aerial high-resolution digital imagery for military, intelligence, law enforcement and security professionals Flight Landata’s proprietary 39 million pixel Precision Geo-Referenced Digital Airborne Camera System (PG-DACS) based technology provides large format aerial imagery with better than 1” resolution and with 1 meter geo-referenced precision. Our systems are designed for light fixed or rotary wing and Un-manned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). FLD’s multi-sensor systems are offered in a variety of configurations designed to meet your specific Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) needs. Our systems enable ISR professionals to "see what they have been missing" through foliage, fire and smoke. Flight Landata’s BuckEye sensor systems are field proven under the most demanding battlefield conditions and have been certified AWR (Air Worthiness Release) by the U.S .Army. They have captured hundreds of thousands of images in Iraq and beyond to successfully support mapping, targeting, damage assessment and IED (improvised Explosive Device) defeat missions.

Flight Landata’s Service Group has the worldwide capability to “fly a complete” mission that includes mission planning, data collection, processing and analysis.

source: http://www.flidata.com/markets/index.html 7oct2006

Urban Planning

High-resolution photogrammetric mapping and 3-D visualizations for precise analyses of natural and manmade environments Flight Landata’s high-resolution digital imagery provides the foundation for today’s urban planning professionals to precisely analyze geospatial information to better understand metropolitan settings and their underlying topology. Data collected by our sensor systems is utilized by users in the engineering, architecture, tax assessment and planning communities to develop highly accurate photogrammetric maps and 3-D digital elevation models to solve complex geospatial problems for municipal and corporate clients. Because we start with the highest-resolution digital images available on the market today, Flight Landata’s Mapping and Modeling Teams are able to rapidly produce superior quality products. Our advanced processing technology enables us to quickly orthorectify and mosaic imagery to produce highly accurate digital planimetric and topographic maps replete with hyperspectral and multispectral information. Flight Landata has recently augmented its capabilities to deliver change detection capabilities to service growing demand from municipalities that are seeking to recover tax base leakage associated with unregulated structural improvements.

Flight Landata’s Service Group has the worldwide capability to “fly a complete” mission that includes mission planning, data collection, processing and analysis.

source: http://www.flidata.com/markets/urban.html 7oct2006

Environmental

Highly accurate hyperspectral and multispectral instruments and digital camera systems for precise study of complex ecosystems and their inhabitants Flight Landata has been supporting scientific field research since its inception in 1992. Our precision hyperspectral and multispectral instruments and high-resolution digital camera systems have collected environmental data for leading edge research in the fields of forestry, oceanographic, atmospheric and geological studies. Flight Landata has been providing systems and services to research teams at the National Aeronautic And Space Administration (NASA), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and numerous leading edge academic institutions. Whether your team is studying coastal erosion, pollution, and invasive species or calibrating sensitive orbital equipment, Flight Landata’s sensor hardware, data collection and processing teams can engineer a custom solution that meets your specific needs.

source: http://www.flidata.com/markets/environmental.html 7oct2006

Commercial

Precision services for aerial surveying, capital asset management, agricultural and forestry applications

Flight Landata’s commercial customers utilize our data collection, processing and analytical services to solve a diverse set of problems in areas that include:

• Controlling pests
• Applying nutrients and water to agricultural crops
• Managing valuable assets (e.g., utilities, telecommunications, golf courses),
• Surveying construction sites
• Developing disaster recovery plans
• Assessing safety and security risks

Our detailed geospatial data provides precise, actionable visual information that enable our customers to manage, plan and improve allocation of valuable resources, utilization of existing assets, response to accidents or natural disasters and to tighten facility safety and security.

source: http://www.flidata.com/markets/commercial.html 7oct2006