Bounce Imaging unveils two new 360° tactical cameras
NewsMay 08, 2024
Flavia Camargos Pereira
Military Embedded Systems
SOF WEEK 2024 -- TAMPA, Florida. Tactical-imaging manufacturer Bounce Imaging has unveiled two new solutions at this week's SOF Week 2024 exhibition in Tampa: its Recce360TW throwable camera and its Land Shark TW K9, both of which have more functionality than previous versions of the company’s products.
The new devices are fitted with TrellisWare’s mobile ad hoc network (MANET) radio modules in order to provide longer-range and more interoperable situational awareness as well as enhanced resilience against electronic warfare (EW) interference. The systems also feature TrellisWare’s TW-650 TSM Shadow Core board module to facilitate seamless collaboration with other uncrewed vehicles as a long-range payload.
Francisco Aguilar, CEO of Bounce Imaging, explains that these tactical cameras can connect to nodes in a radio network: “This is now basically one of those radios. So, if you throw it into a building, it can connect and push through the whole mesh.”
Deployable by tossing, tethering, or mounting, the Recce360TW and Land Shark TW K9 are built to enable warfighters to evaluate environmental circumstances from all angles simultaneously before engaging. They are engineered to eliminate blind spots and facilitate rapid deployment even in scenarios where robots or drones cannot go, with context on field conditions provided directly to ATAK devices (Android team awareness kit, a smartphone-based geospatial infrastructure and situational-awareness app). Both are low-size, weight and power (SWaP) devices engineered to enable users to explore challenging environments and capture stabilized, omnidirectional video and audio data without exposing them to risky situations.
Before introducing Recce360TW and Land Shark TW K9, the solutions passed through several tests to evaluate their dropping capacities and integration with radio networks and optimize latency and bandwidth use.
Currently, Bounce Imaging is involved in several contracts with the U.S. military for the supply of throwable cameras, one of which is an $11 million agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for several hundred systems to equip special operations units; initial shipment of devices is scheduled to start in May 2024. Bounce Imaging signed another $5 million in deals with the U.S. Air Force, including one for the development of next-generation systems that incorporate fully panoramic thermal video and 5G communications modules.
In addition to those contracts, the supplier has recently delivered the first units of TrellisWare-enabled K9 cameras to a NATO country. Company officials note that its cameras are currently in service with U.S. federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies as well as in use by U.S. partners and allies.
“We are meeting with other NATO allies. So, there are a lot of users that are going to be integrating these cameras [in their inventory],” Aguilar states.
