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As first reported in Defense News, a terminal that can bring together video from multiple sources in the field, including a surveillance airship, are among the technologies being examined under a $6 million contract awarded by the U.S. Army to Ares Systems Group, Bassfield, Miss.

Ares has been funded to seek suitable technologies in military research labs, government agencies and commercial firms. Then Ares and the Army's (ERDC) Engineer Research and Development Center will evaluate them more fully.

One of the technologies being examined by Ares and ERDC is the Rover III, an upgrade to video terminals used by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to view UAV video. The Rover III provides front-line forces with the capability to receive imagery directly from unmanned and manned aircraft. The Army, using the Rover III as the building block, plans to add to the existing inventory of legacy remote video terminals (RVT), introducing a system compatible with the One System Ground Control System (GCS). This system produced by AAI Corp. provides the same capability as the Rover III as well as the ability to overlay UAS telemetry directly on a moving map for improved situational awareness and targeting.

Also being assessed are devices that would enable the detection of concealed IEDs and the Blackwater Polar Airship, a low-cost, high-altitude, unmanned surveillance balloon able to reach altitudes up to 15,000 feet.
The Army's ERDC, in Vicksburg, Miss., funds approximately $1 billion a year in research and development at laboratories all over the United States. ERDC has already been engaged in technologies that protect forward operating bases in Iraq, blue-force tracking and rapid airfield construction.