Helicopter rescues woman by light on cell phone using night vision

Helicopter rescues woman by light on cell phone using night vision
http://www.itvregions.com/news.php?region=West&content=20521&cat=0 (2005-09-16)

£200 million contract awarded to helicopter firm.

The Yeovil helicopter firm AgustaWestland has been awarded a contract worth nearly £200 million from the Ministry of Defense.

The company will install a new night vision system for the Apache helicopter, enabling pilots to pick out targets even in darkness. Sixty-seven helicopters will be upgraded over the next five years.
Things are looking up for St. Louis police who will be looking down.

Happy with a test of elevated night vision video surveillance cameras during Mardi Gras, the department is investing grant money in nine cameras that can be moved among potential trouble spots as spies in the sky. Authorities expect to catch more criminals in the act. Next use: Fair St. Louis on the riverfront, July 2-4. "We can zoom in and zoom out and rotate the camera with a joystick," explained Lt. Col. Stephen Pollihan, the assistant chief of police. "We’re excited about them. They’ll give us another tool, one more dimension." If a crime is captured on camera, the tape can not only help locate the culprit but convince the jury, Pollihan explained. "A photograph is great evidence in court."

The cameras can be mounted high on utility poles or buildings and can be moved easily, since the signals they send are wireless. Pictures can be monitored from a command post or even a vehicle. Such cameras have long been used for institutional and industrial security. A civic organization made news a year ago by installing one camera, with plans for more, in Soulard, where it was to be manipulated and monitored over the Internet. But Pollihan said he knew of no other police department in the St. Louis area to put the devices to work.

St. Louis officials researched camera use in Chicago, New Orleans and Washington, he said. "Everybody we talked to was very pleased," Pollihan said. "New Orleans is expanding their use. In Chicago, cameras are a $4 million investment." The uses are as diverse as a police officers’ imagination. Monitoring large crowds is an obvious one. Others include hiding a camera where an undercover officer will be working.

Pollihan said he envisioned cameras watching special events downtown, the Washington Avenue club row, drug-infested areas and city parks. "Eventually, I’d like to see them out in the neighborhoods," he said. "We tried them out during the Mardi Gras in Soulard and were very pleased," Pollihan said. "From our command van, we could see the behavior of crowds in a two-to-three block area. "We could pinpoint disturbances and see immediately where police were needed." The unobtrusive black cameras are squarish, about 18 inches across, and can blend in with transformers and other overhead equipment. The Police Board approved their purchase last week from United Technologies for $100,000. They’re being finance through a federal grant, Pollihan said. Delivery is expected next month.

St. Louis bought cameras with night vision capabilities but not microphones. A few departments have installed audio equipment that can recognize the sound of gunfire and pinpoint its location. New Orleans police Capt. Marlon Defillo said his department used about 25 cameras in high-crime areas. "The cameras have been credited with lowering crime," he said. Some neighborhood leaders are so pleased with the cameras that fundraising efforts are being made to provide the police with more of them, Defillo noted Helicopter rescues woman by light on cell phone using night vision

WINDSOR, Calif. A lost hiker was rescued in Shiloh Park near Windsor late last night -- and she has her cell phone to thank.

After she lost her bearings, Kathy Karlen called the sheriff’s dispatcher asking for help. When the rescue helicopter approached her location after dark, they asked her point her cell phone’s lighted face toward the sky.

Using night vision goggles, the crew spotted the light -- and Karlen.

She was uninjured. Night Vision USA
10 - 12 October 2005 - The Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore, USA (2005-04-01)

With the on-going operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as homeland security challenges the workload on military forces, police and civil emergency response organisations is unrelenting. Night Vision and electro-optical technologies are central to these organisations’ ability to respond around the clock to threats and challenges.
Night Vision 2005 will highlight fresh operational experience from around the world presented by speakers from air, land and maritime forces engaged in activities as varied as urban warfare, air-to-air combat training, maritime patrol and littoral operations disaster relief. Speakers will focus on what worked well, as well as what lessons they have drawn from their experiences. The challenges of assessing equipment and getting it into the hands of operators in a timely manner will be examined as will the latest developments in night vision technology, and the simulation and training systems vital to getting the most benefit from it.
Shephards Night Vision Conference and Exhibition, now in its 14th year, has fully established itself internationally as a unique opportunity for the night vision community to meet, network and do business. Delegates attracted from many nations and disciplines will be exposed to the latest thinking in military, para-military and civilian organisations on how they can benefit from evolving night vision technologies and the challenges that must be met along the way.

Session One – Operational experience
Session Two – Delivering capability
Session Three – Contemporary Requirements
Session Four - Leveraging civil technology for defense & homeland security applications
Session Five– Future Technology and Developments

Night Vision 2004 Show Review
Industry Glances Through the Eyes of the Warfighter: Night Vision 2004
(Source: Frost & Sullivan; issued Dec. 7, 2004)
This year’s Night Vision 2004 conference started off with a bang as image intensified and thermally-imaged gun camera footage of Baghdad’s ‘Ambush Alley’ and RAF air operations over al-Samarra brought industry representatives a fresh view of the challenges inherent for airborne strike package in Iraq’s MOUT-FIBUA environment. In a civilian-populated urban warfare environment this can be lethal. The ‘blooming effect’ of non-NVD compliant anti-collision and navigational lights on air-to-air refuelling tankers as well as streetlights, domestic lighting and shops reduce the ability of air personnel to positively identify and engage hostiles. Blooming and FLIR limitations were not only on the minds of air personnel – US Army Colonel Wade Jost and UK Army Major Simon Nias spoke to the need for a one-to-one night vision capability.
From the US side, the need to have all troops trained in night-fighting was only augmented by the need for more advanced, higher-resolution monocular and binocular devices. Operations analysis of MOUT-FIBUA combat has indicated that to positively identify and engage hostiles, greater resolution is needed. While this is QED from the first Gulf War, current sensor fusion technology may make this a reality. ITT’s ENVG is one of a small number of fused I2/TI devices. While this technology is available at the platform sensor level, it is not yet feasible to lower the costs from some $16,500 to the $1,300-$1,500 range of the AN/PVS-14 commonly used by US Forces. Currently, for instance the UK is hampered in its deployment capability as the armoured brigade’s worth of night vision devices (NVD) in Iraq is only now being replaced with ruggardised, military-standard kit. As this equipment is rotated, it will need to be repaired and brought up to MOD standard, thus removing a large number of NVD units from service. This poses a significant problem as UK policy undertakes an ever-larger number of deployment situations, all of which require the ability to effectively operate in a nocturnal environment.
Polemically, such a reduction in price would only come with substantial uptake by cost-sensitive military procurement agencies. Like a dog chasing its tail, this logic get no where fast. Thus crystal ball-gazing industry professionals and procurement officers would be warned of the risks of investing in this technology. One solution advocated by DEP’s Jan van Spyker is the effective standardization through industrialisation of core technological components. By creating such a ‘core’ or ‘trunk’, industry would be able to invest such savings in experimental fusion technology. Industrial cooperation in the NATO/EU area does make sense, however it may not be able to offer effective alternatives to cost issues or provide a sufficiently tailored solution to MOD requirements. Sweden, for instance, operates in effective co-determination with Insight Technology, as operations in the far North are complicated by high levels of ambient atmospheric electromagnetic activity (ie, the aurora borealis). By creating such dynamic feedback loop, the Swedish MOD and Insight Technology benefit from the experience and lessons learned from Northern operations and can thus tailor NVD resolution to the environment. Another solution is simply supplying enhanced Gen II tubes from a country with lower production costs. Thus Canada’s Newcon Optik incorporates Russian technology into its product under a special licensing agreement with Rosobronexport. This may prove an intriguing proposition for forces whose financial constraints clash with their doctrinal requirements. Although MOD’s are obviously keen on sustaining local industry, the combination of domestically produced image intensifiers with imported tubes should more than pique the interest of the cost-conscious procurement officer.
Thus drivers and restraints for NVD acquisition since 1991 are very much unchanged, however Night Vision 2004 has allowed military end-users to throw down the gauntlet to industry for economical NVD solutions. The major restraint for MOD’s procurement of leading-edge NVDs remains cost. If smaller producers want to survive, costs will need to decline. Thus the question remains how industry will respond – by cooperation, co-determination or component substitution.

Night Vision 2004 Feedback:
Shephard’s Night Vision 2004 event proved to be an outstanding success. Delegates from around the world attended and included a very healthy percentage of new attendees to join those that are more familiar with the event and its importance in this industry field.
Night Vision 2004 focused on the implications, for defence, of the world’s changing security environment. The key capability of night vision was examined in terms of the unpredictability and complex operational challenges that exist today.
The event proved a successful forum where the night vision community met, exchanged views and addressed challenges. Delegates from across the world and from different disciplines learnt from leaders in this field.
Over 200 delegates attended the conference and 90% rated the conference good to excellent. Delegate feedback includes the following comments:
“This has been a unique opportunity to stay up to date with developments in the industry and get feedback from operators”
“If you only want to visit one night vision event, the Shephard conference is the one and only”
Shephard is pleased that this event attracted high-quality visitors and speakers, and expects to build on this strength when the Night Vision 2005 event takes place at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, USA on 10 – 12 October 2004.