The ARCHER system is attached to a Gippsland GA-8 Airvan like the one shown above. *
Photo: Courtesy of the Civil Air Patrol * MINDEN, Nevada -- As the search for missing adventurer Steve Fossett continues, rescuers are turning to a super-vision camera that can distinguish objects like wreckage far more efficiently than the human eye.
The Civil Air Patrol has brought in a special plane from its Utah branch fitted with super-vision equipment, called the ARCHER -- an acronym for Airborne Real-time Cueing Hyperspectral Enhanced Reconnaissance. The system is capable of panchromatic aerial imaging far more detailed than plain sight or ordinary photography can gather. The hyperspectral sensor was built by NovaSol, a Hawaii-based company. 1
A special camera mounted to the belly of the plane transmits detailed images in real time to a flat-screen monitor for operators on the plane to examine. It also captures the views in its memory at a rate of 30 GB per hour, to be analyzed more meticulously and manipulated on the ground later. That data is tagged with global-positioning coordinates as well, so searchers can return to an area if ground technicians spot something.
"It is a better set of eyes than a human set," says Col. Drew Alexa, director of advanced technology and the ARCHER program manager for the Civil Air Patrol based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. "The human eye sees basically three bands of light. The ARCHER sensor sees 50. It can see things that are anomalous in the vegetation such as metal or something from an airplane wreckage."
The technology was developed in the 1990s for a variety of military applications, but Alexa led the charge to put it to use in the CAP's search operations.
The CAP has owned 17 of these $32,000 units since a 2002 federal grant provided $6 million to buy them. But they've only come into use in searches like the Fossett effort since 2005, because they needed to be individually tested and fitted onto single-engine Gippsland GA-8 Airvans, an Australian aircraft that costs $450,000 each. The cost of the planes was covered by the U.S. Air Force, which oversees the volunteer CAP.
Alexa cites searches in Georgia and Maryland where the ARCHER spotted the plane wrecks in the past year, although in each case the passengers were dead.
The ARCHER does have limitations. Its reflective-light technology only works during the day, and it must fly at 2,500 feet -- much higher than the 1,000-foot altitude flown by the Cessnas in the Fossett search. It also can only analyze a 0.1-square-mile region at a time. And while it does provide information in real time, the more intensive analysis takes many more hours.
"It usually works better where you have some information" to narrow down the search area, Alexa says. "ARCHER does not see underground, underwater, under the snow, and it’s not going to see through trees. If plane is buried under a tree canopy, it’s not going to see that."
Fossett, who's used custom-built vessels to set some of his more than 110 air, land and sea world records, would be intrigued if he knew, says longtime friend and Boy Scouts of America president Rick Cronk. Fossett is a lifelong Boy Scout and president of the National Eagle Scouts Association.
"He would be more than fascinated," Cronk says. "He loves this stuff."
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