Echodyne - Experts & Thought Leaders

Radiofrequency (RF) technology specialists SPX Communication Technologies launches the BLACKTALON Ecosystem, a new Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) capability based on the operationally proven BLACKTALON solution. BLACKTALON Ecosystem The BLACKTALON Ecosystem integrates SPX Communication Technologies’ BLACKTALON C-UAS technology and decades of expertise in the space with a vendor-agnostic framework. This approach ensures solutions can meet every customer’s unique requirements. Defence and security teams gain from a tailored approach to their specific Concept of Operations, threats, user groups, existing capabilities, and budgets. C-UAS solutions SPX collaborates closely with customers from their concept stage to operational deployment Customers also benefit from SPX Communication Technologies’ extensive experience developing C-UAS solutions for high-threat scenarios from Ukraine to Iraq and other active global hot spots. SPX collaborates closely with customers from their concept stage to operational deployment, ensuring solutions are optimised for specific user needs and mission objectives and remain supported throughout their operational life. Customer access flexibility The core BLACKTALON solution includes carefully selected active radars, EOIR, passive RFDF, RF jammer, and mast configuration. While SPX will continue to offer this standard configuration, the open architecture of BLACKTALON Ecosystem allows any of these elements to be customised or replaced. This flexibility provides customers access to the latest systems and hardware capabilities without unnecessary barriers and in a suitable timeframe. Autonomous optical tracking Customers could choose autonomous optical tracking from OpenWorks, cutting-edge 3D radar from Echodyne For example, customers could choose autonomous optical tracking from OpenWorks, cutting-edge 3D radar from US provider Echodyne, RF subsystems from SPX and mount them on a range of dispersed or centrally located mobile or transportable masts to provide a single scalable BLACKTALON C-UAS capability. These latest capabilities join the Ecosystem alongside existing providers Chess Dynamics, a supplier of surveillance, fire control, and large positioning systems, and Blighter, the UK's supplier of ground-based electronic scanning radar systems. Breaking the threat response barrier Graeme Forsyth, C-UAS Product Manager at SPX Communication Technologies, said, “The complexity and speed that modern conflict develops means it's impossible for a single C-UAS provider to own all the necessary technologies to provide a best-in-class solution suitable for all forms of threats today and in the future."  "As a trusted partner for global defence and security teams, our BLACKTALON Ecosystem helps break down barriers to a threat response. It continues evolving to support their C-UAS need – all in close collaboration with customers, and the industry, and supported by our proven technology.” Customisable design James Cross, Director at OpenWorks, said, “Collaboration is key in the development of successful C-UAS defence technology. Integration and flexibility are at the forefront of system capabilities and requirements." "Our inclusion in the BLACKTALON Ecosystem reflects this, and we are proud to be involved with a system that allows end-users a fully customisable design depending on mission-specific requirements.” Accuracy, flexibility, and ease of integration David Montague, Director of EMEAI at Echodyne, said, “Systems are evolving rapidly to address the C-UAS threat, with accuracy, flexibility, and ease of integration being key evaluation criteria." "We are pleased to be included in BLACKTALON Ecosystem, which provides rich optionality for customers to easily tailor system design and performance to mission and location requirements.”

PureTech is committed to continuous innovation and customer satisfaction by providing the most comprehensive, easy to integrate, and reliable AI-boosted, geospatial video analytics and sensor fusion software solutions for borders and critical infrastructure. Larry Bowe Jr., CEO, said, “We are pleased to share just some of our progress bringing new capabilities to market in our last few major software releases. This is one of the many reasons why PureTech was named in a recent industry report and received two Govies Awards.” Geospatial video analytics Core Software Developments are as follows: PTZ auto follow – the ability to track a specific target, with a PTZ camera leveraging our AI, that violates access control or breaches the perimeter. New cyber security enhancements. Improved throughput for processing various system operations. Enhancements to object tracking. Enhanced server failover automation. Expanded system health monitoring. Support for autonomy zones (geographic zones for generating alarms and other automated actions based on tracks entering, exiting or moving within zones). Novel UDP implementation to support streaming video across latent networks such as cellular and Starlink. Enhanced track management features including recording, searching, and filtering of radar and other tracks. Added support for additional neural nets including, Efficient Detection, Yolo V5 and V7, and ONNX ML runtime. Require (or not) Auto-identification using Machine Learning/Deep Learning (ML/DL) to Alarm. ‘Resolution boost’ (Res Boost™) feature, which enables use of ML/DL on high resolution imagery. Auto-verify of targets using ML/DL on PTZ camera feed when initial detection was by radar, fence, video analytics (i.e., any sensor with geo-location). Support for running video analytics including ML/DL on iGPU inside Intel processors. Enables deployment on lower cost edge computers that do not have a discrete Nvidia GPU. Geographic area alarm shunt to enable temporary gate access Bidirectional TAK communications Important Partner Technology Software Integrations: Support for bidirectional TAK communications (Team Awareness Kit). Support for new lenses on ClearAlign VZ-500 PTZ cameras. Added NATO 2525B map icons. Added integration and support for: Elta 2112 radar; SRC R1410 Radar for drone detection; SRC WhisperHunter RF Signal finder for drone classification; DallmeierPss3 panoramic colour camera; Magos Radars; Genetec integration to support tracks and alarms on their GIS map; PTZ driver for additional PVP NightHawk cameras; Hensoldt Radar; Health monitoring of Siklu radios, and solar power systems; Rail Intrusion Detection System integration; Echodyne Echoguard Radar; Silent Sentinel PTZ Driver; AMAG Access Control enhancements.

Echodyne, globally renowned manufacturer of innovative, high-performance radars for government and commercial markets, has announced that it will be co-exhibiting with Security Radar Integrators (SRI) at the 19th annual American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) Aviation Security Summit, taking place in Arlington, VA from December 4-5, 2019. Aviation security With ever-increasing drones in the airspace, protecting aircraft and airports from drones has become a major focus for regulators The event brings together senior leadership from the nation’s airports with officials from DHS, TSA, CBP and other key players in security policy to discuss the complex issues surrounding aviation security and to look ahead to challenges on the horizon, including the growing threat from drones. The drone disruption at Gatwick Airport in December 2018 grounded nearly 140,000 passengers and cost airlines more than £50 million. In the second quarter of 2019, the FAA collected reports of 714 sightings of unauthorised drones near airplanes and around airports in the U.S. With the growing number of drones in the airspace, protecting aircraft and airports from drones has become a major focus for regulators and law enforcement around the globe. Ground-based perimeter intrusion detection system Security Radar Integrators (SRI), globally renowned perimeter protection solutions for airports provider, announced the selection of Echodyne radars as the drone detection sensor for its existing ground-based perimeter intrusion detection system (PIDS) in October. The companies are collaborating on security system design and deployment, with SRI announcing its new white paper on comprehensive airport surveillance, ‘Full Coverage: Combining PIDS and UAS Detection for Critical Infrastructure’. The paper highlights Echodyne’s EchoGuard 3D radar and the role that high-performance radar plays in SRI’s Airfield Radar System (ARS). Leaders from both companies will be on hand at the Security Summit to discuss drone security for airports. 3D security solution “SRI has best-in-class technology and tremendous experience in designing and deploying airport perimeter security solutions,” said Dan Flynn, President of SRI. “We are excited to discuss our market-leading 3D security solution with airport executives and security leaders at the AAAE Aviation Security Summit.”

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, present a range of threats, from the careless and clueless to the criminal. While many incidents may seem harmless, the threat to any location at any time depends on a range of factors. Drones are inexpensive for criminals to buy or make, and there are continuously improving battery, airspeed, and payload capabilities. UAVs can also fly without an RF signal to jam or hack. Fortunately, sensor technologies including radar are available for security agencies and personnel to protect assets and the public. Radio-wave signals  Radar works as a deterrent by sending out a radio-wave signal using a transmitter antenna, and a small portion of that signal reflects off objects in its path and returns to a receiver antenna. The highest performing radars use an antenna technology called Active Electronically Scanning Array (AESA), which enables all-electronic reconfiguration of the antennas. When an AESA radar detects an object, it can ‘focus’ its antennas to track the object, in much the same way as the zoom on a camera does. Multiple objects can be tracked while continuing to scan. Kirkland, Washington-based Echodyne offers a radar product that brings these ESA capabilities to non-military security applications at commercial price points. Combining proprietary hardware with intelligent software, Echodyne produces a compact, solid-state, electronically scanning array Echodyne’s ESA radar Echodyne says they are reinventing radar price-performance for security applications in the ground (people, vehicles) or air (counter-UAS) domains. Combining proprietary hardware with intelligent software, Echodyne produces a compact, solid-state, electronically scanning array (ESA) radar that is affordable for commercial, law enforcement, and governmental customers. The company is backed by high profile investors, including Bill Gates, Madrona Venture Group, Vulcan Capital, NEA, and Lux Capital. “Radar is a sensor,” says Leo McCloskey, Echodyne VP Marketing. “It is most applicable when security professionals can both understand its capabilities and define risk assessment and deployment requirements that call for those capabilities. Our customers are primarily security system integrators and consultancies, which integrate the performance of radar into a sensor array that meets mission requirements.” Radar technology for border surveillance Echodyne was selected by the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for its Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP) to demonstrate the performance of its radar technology for border surveillance applications. The radar was deployed both in fixed remote surveillance towers and as a lightweight rapid deployment kit for field agents. Able to surveil ground and air domains, the radar combines versatility and commercial price with surveillance capabilities. “We set out to build the world’s best compact, solid-state ESA radar sensor, and we are demonstrating that we’ve reached that objective,” says McCloskey. “We’re excited to introduce these capabilities for other security applications.” Able to surveil ground and air domains, the radar combines versatility and commercial price with surveillance capabilities MESA technology Echodyne’s proprietary technology provides a small true electronically scanning array (ESA) radar. Unlike expensive Active ESA (AESA) phased array radars, MESA requires no physical phase shifters, thus reducing the cost, size, weight, and power by several orders of magnitude while maintaining all the benefits of fast ESA radar. Echodyne combines its MESA technology with an intelligent software suite, Acuity, to produce a configurable, software-defined radar for commercial, law enforcement, and governmental security applications. The capability is also useful for temporary events such as rallies and marathons, and many other market applications “Technology seems to make everything more available to more people over time,” says McCloskey. “What is a retail product today will be a purchased self-assembly kit tomorrow and an improvised self-made drone the following day. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is diligently at work on creating rules for safe UAV operation, though any final rules remain some distance off. As drone volumes increase, delineating friend from foe in the airspace requires clear legal and regulatory frameworks, which are nascent but would help distinguish the threat of nuisance flyers from illegal overflight.” Radar sensor for security applications “Detecting and tracking airspace objects of interest is imperative for airports, chemical plants, oil and gas installations, refineries, water and energy utilities, stadiums and other public spaces”, says McCloskey. The capability is also useful for temporary events such as rallies and marathons, and many other market applications. “As with any product, our applicability will depend on variables like location, terrain, risk assessment, and existing security technologies,” says McCloskey. “Our mission is to deliver the very best radar sensor for security applications.”