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Q&A Featured by Ocean Science and Technology
Can you explain how Overwatch’s advanced imaging systems are being used in ocean technology and maritime industries?
Overwatch Imaging provides real-time, automated airborne intelligence solutions for time-critical maritime missions.
Solutions combine best-in-class multispectral sensors and powerful edge computing with artificial intelligence driven software sets to automate wide-area maritime search, object detection and domain awareness tasks that are often repetitive, focus-intensive and vulnerable to operator fatigue.
Specific use cases in active operation include crewed and uncrewed wide-area domain awareness, automated boat detection, search and rescue, counter narcotics, anti-piracy, AIS signal verification, environmental monitoring, wildlife detection, pollution detection/monitoring and more.
What are some of the unique challenges you face when developing imaging solutions for ocean environments, and how do you address them?
Environmental conditions:
Wind, weather, and visibility are constant and inevitable factors in any form of airborne ISR, especially in maritime operations. Some conditions can be effectively mitigated by a combination operational adaptability with proactive hardware and software implementations, while others are largely prohibitive for effective image-based ISR activities.
Vast areas:
The maritime domain is vast, unforgiving, and ever-changing. Maintaining consistent and comprehensive situational awareness while adhering to strict procedural, political, and personnel protocols is a monumental challenge that requires innovative solutions to complex problems. Overwatch Imaging solutions help address challenges by automating tasks that are often more effectively and efficiently done by sensor and software. This reduces operator fatigue and frees humans in the loop to focus on important decision making tasks.
Surface conditions:
Searching for small objects of interest over large areas of open ocean is highly subject to sea state, sun angle, glare, wind and other surface conditions. To help mitigate negative impacts of variable conditions, Overwatch Imaging develops continually-improving Artificial Intelligence models to differentiate specific objects of interest (vessels of various sizes, people in water, colored objects, etc.) from the sensor feed.
Data transmission and processing:
Transmitting large volumes of high-resolution imagery and data from remote ocean locations is difficult or prohibitive due to limited bandwidth and connectivity issues. Overwatch Imaging employs data reduction techniques and on-board processing to minimize the amount of data that needs to be transmitted. Critical information is prioritized for transmission, while less urgent data is stored for later retrieval. This approach ensures that essential data reaches operators in real-time, even in bandwidth-constrained environments.
Can you tell us more about Overwatch’s ASO software in relation to maritime applications?
ASO (Automates Sensor Operator) is a world's first capability that acts like an autopilot for leading full motion video gimbal platforms. ASO leverages the same key software architecture Overwatch Imaging developed for our own line of smart sensors to convert manually operated and human-dependent gimbals into automated wide-area search platforms with adaptable AI and real-time edge processing capabilities. For maritime applications, ASO can be an invaluable tool for ISR missions that require extensive data collection and analysis with limited resources. ASO automates sensor steering and real-time data analysis to conduct wide-area or systematic search missions with limited human intervention required.
What type of challenges are typically faced by maritime users of Overwatch’s smart sensors and software?
Environmental challenges:
Maritime operators must contend with constantly changing environmental conditions and complexities that require alert, active, and agile decision making. No two missions are the same.
Challenging objectives:
Simply put, detecting small objects in a vast maritime environments is extremely difficult. Time is often critical, communications are often limited, conditions are often challenging and resources are often constrained. This dynamic combination of factors necessitates creative and adaptable solutions that leverage technology, automation and cutting-edge software to increase human efficiency and effectiveness.
Human limitations:
The rising demand for geospatial intelligence vastly outweighs the supply and bandwidth of trained human operators and analysts available to competently fulfill. Simultaneously, the workloads of operators in these important roles are often oversaturated, leading to decreased mission efficacy over time and increased potential for fatigue-related error.
What future technologies or enhancements are Overwatch currently working on that will further benefit ocean science and technology?
Overwatch Imaging is rapidly developing and improving its suite of AI-powered software capabilities, both for our own smart sensors and as a software-only upgrade for video gimbal platforms. The ability integrate with a wide variety of platforms, and on existing hardware, means scaling-up across large programs and fleets of aircraft be done rapidly and cost-effectively. Additionally, as software capabilities evolve, they can be implemented at-scale rapidly, without the need for hardware changes.
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