TopEyeView, a provider of real-time video imagery via aerostats and unmanned air vehicles, and Vidiation, LLC, which has developed radiation detection software that is integrated into video camera systems, have agreed to a strategic partnership. Under the arrangement Vidiation will market TopEyeView’s service to existing Vidiation customers while TopEyeView will offer Vidiation’s software. Vidiation last fall announced that its Vidiation–Radiation Analytics Detection System (V-RADS) software was ready for market. “The establishment of a pervasive grid, layering V-RADS across a vast number of existing surveillance networks, from Main Street to Wall Street, is a major element of both Vidiation’s mission and marketing strategy,” says Frank O’Connor, Vidiation’s president and CEO. “This partnership expands the reach of V-RADS by adding the dimension of mobility through flight.” Another reason for the agreement is to give Vidiation the opportunity to test V-RADS in an aerial surveillance mode at TopEyeView’s test facilities, Gordon Bingham, Vidiation’s vice president of marketing, tells TR2. Vidiation has developed a second version of V-RADS that incorporates a charge coupled device chip in a box next to the video camera that increases the detection sensitivity by up to five times, Bingham says. That means to detect a dirty bomb consisting of 60 curies of radioactive material V-RADS could be at a 90 meter stand-off range, he says. Separately, Vidiation expects to begin beta testing early in February in several hospitals of V-RADS to monitor radioactive material storage sites as part of Phase I research under a Small Business Innovation Research contract with the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. Phase I is expected to end early this spring and Vidiation is preparing its application for a possible Phase II grant, Bingham says.
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