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Trakka Systems launches new camera series
Known for searchlights, Trakka is now bringing its design
philosophy to multi-sensor camera systems.
by ben forrest
rakka Systems is rolling out a
new line of gyro-stabilized multisensor camera systems created
with many of the sensibilities
the company brings to its line of sophisticated searchlights.
T
After introducing a prototype of its new
TC-300 multi-sensor surveillance system at
HAI Heli-Expo last year, Trakka is planning
to make its first deliveries of the product in
January through March of 2017.
“There’s a look and a feel to it that almost
makes it — I’m going to use the word ‘sexy’
in terms of industrial design,” said Andrew
Phillips, the company’s executive vice president of global business development.
“So we’ve tried to make it appealing to
the marketplace, as well as having good
performance and feature sets. But I think
obviously the biggest thing that drives us is
actually the positioning [of] the product in
the marketplace.”
The TC-300 is the first new product in the
TrakkaCam line, which also includes several legacy models from Swesystem AB, a
Swedish camera design and development
company Trakka acquired in December 2015.
There are plans to scale the TC-300 up
and down in terms of size, adding new
models that build on the success of the
legacy SWE-LE series, whose prime market
to date has been the inspection and utility
market, said Phillips.
video engine with several features, including
automatic target tracking, image blending,
and haze reduction.
“The value equation is something like we
offer 80 percent of the performance of the
big gimbals, at approximately 50 percent
of the price,” said Phillips. “And we’re talking about doing that in less than half of the
mass and in a size of 300 millimeters versus
400 millimeters. So in an era where budgets
are tight and where every kilogram that you
put on an aircraft is quite crucial, I think
that’s quite a good value equation.”
The TrakkaCam line is also exempt from
International Traffic in Arms Regulations
(ITAR), making it widely exportable to countries around the world.
While immediate applications for
TrakkaCam systems will be mainly in airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), the company has taken
some orders for ground vehicles as well,
said Phillips.
“If you imagine, you would put these on an
extendable mast on an armored vehicle,
and whether it’s a SWAT team in the USA
or whether it’s a military force trying to do
IED protection or force protection out in an
area of conflict, you can imagine that there
quite a few ground vehicle applications of
these kinds of sensors as well,” he said.
“I think it all goes about being able to
see at long ranges and to be able to
protect and allow people to keep at arm’s
length from harmful devices and harmful
characters out there.”
After debuting the TC-300 prototype at HeliExpo in March 2016, Trakka also showed
the product at the Helitech International
tradeshow in October, by which time it had
already taken its first launch order, followed
by another shortly after the show, said
Phillips. The response at both shows was
“exceptionally enthusiastic,” he said.
“At Helitech … people were seeking us out
for our new technology,” he said. “It was
quite remarkable, and I would say the interest extended not only amongst operators
— the forces who would actually use this
technology — but also to the aircraft OEMs
[original equipment manufacturers] with
whom we have very good relationships.”
Phillips cited Trakka’s use of “disruptive technology” in the searchlight market and said the
company is adopting a disruptive approach to
its systems in the TrakkaCam range.
“I think we see great business prospects
from it,” he said. “From the user point of
view, they get far more bang for their buck
and the ability to actually perform ISR at a
much lower price. . . . It’s exciting, even in
an era of downturn.”
The TC-300 is a single-line replaceable unit
(LRU) system that comprises an innovative, lightweight 300-millimeter (11.8-inch)
gimbal and has a total mass of less than
19 kilograms (42 pounds), according to the
company’s technical data.
It features high-performance, fully digital
4-axis gyro-stabilization and a payload suite
with a medium wavelength, infrared (MWIR)
thermal imager with continuous zoom, color
HDTV with continuous zoom and various
laser sensors.
The TC-300 also has a fully-integrated
inertial measurement unit/global positioning system and an advanced high-definition
Trakka Systems is planning to make its first
deliveries of its new TC-300 multi-sensor
surveillance system in Q1 2017. Trakka Photo
Heli-E xpo Issue | Winter 2017
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