Adam, it’s lovely to meet you, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Overwatch Imaging works in a range of industries — can you explain how your advanced imaging systems are being used in the ocean technology and maritime industries?
We provide real-time, automated airborne intelligence solutions for time-critical maritime missions, combining best-in-class multispectral sensors and powerful edge computing with artificial intelligence driven software sets. This enables customers to automate wide-area maritime search, object detection, and domain awareness tasks that are often repetitive and focus-intensive, making them 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, and pollution detection or monitoring, among others.
What are some of the unique challenges you face when developing imaging solutions for ocean environments, and how do you address them?
Firstly, the 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, however others are largely prohibitive for effective image-based ISR activities.
The maritime domain is also vast, dynamic, 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’s solutions help address challenges by automating tasks that are often more effectively and efficiently done by sensor and software, reducing operator fatigue and freeing humans in the loop to focus on important decision making tasks.
Another challenge is the 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, we develop continually-improving Artificial Intelligence models to differentiate specific objects of interest (vessels of various sizes, people in water, colored objects, and so on) from the sensor feed.
Lastly, data transmission and processing can be difficult or prohibitive when transmitting large volumes of high-resolution imagery and data from remote ocean locations, largely 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 stands for Automated Sensor Operator, and 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 are not only relevant when developing maritime technology, but also for the operators, who must contend with constantly changing environmental conditions and complexities that require alert, active, and agile decision making. No two missions are the same.
Simply put, detect small objects in a vast maritime environments is also 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 is another challenge users may face. 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?
We are rapidly developing and improving our 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.
Thank you so much for your time, it’s been a pleasure speaking to you and we will continue to follow Overwatch Imaging with great interest.
