Big brother is watching! Showcasing the mind blowing ARGUS-IS, a 1.8 gigapixel military drone camera, part of a $18.5 million military contract awarded back in 2007.
The DARPA-developed ARGUS-IS the highest resolution surveillance platform in the world, and, when mounted to a drone, can single-handedly do the work of an army of 100 predator drones watching the area of one medium-sized city! The camera provides military users an “eyes-on” persistent wide area surveillance capability to support tactical users in a dynamic battlespace or urban environment.
One of the programs objectives is to track and monitor events and activities of “interest” on a continuous basis in “areas of interest“…hmmm
ARGUS-IS can cover areas of up to 15 square miles at a glance while still spotting objects as small as six inches around from heights of 17,500 feet. It not only streams the footage to the ground live, but keeps a stash of video on board as well, a staggeringly massive stash of up to 1 million terabytes (one exabyte) per day.
Whether the ARGUS-IS is currently deployed right now is classified information, and likewise, we aren’t allowed to see exactly what it looks like either. But one thing is for sure: all-seeing eyes in the sky that never forget aren’t science fiction. They’re reality.
Check out this video to show the awesome detail this camera has:
