A new system of artificial intelligence-powered cameras is now operating around Washington, DC to boost the US capital’s existing air defence system.
Officially known as Enhanced Regional Situational Awareness (ERSA), the system uses a network of electro-optical/infrared cameras to supplement traditional radar-powered identification of aircraft near the American capital.
The Pentagon in 2023 said it would give $100 million Los Angeles start-up Teleidoscope to role out the upgraded approach to visual airspace monitoring. The firm specialises in developing AI-backed software that can identify and track moving objects.
Some 15-months after issuing that contract, an initial portion of the Teleidoscope camera system is now deployed and active in the Washington, DC area.
“Two of the new cameras have been installed and are operational,” the Pentagon said on 25 November. “The team is working to install seven new cameras a year going forward.”
The Teleidoscope camera system replaces an ageing and less-capable network of cameras that were installed more than 20 years ago after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, which saw commercial airliners hit the Pentagon and World Trade Center towers in New York.
While the new visual tracking system is not fully automated, it does use artificial intelligence to identify airborne objects and make a threat assessment for a human operator.
“The system itself tries to identify what it believes the target to be, and then the operator can assess whether to override it or fine-tune it,” says Master Sergeant Kendrick Wilburn, an Air National Guard non-commissioned officer with the Joint Air Defense Operations Center in Washington.
He notes the new Teleidoscope camera offer significant improvements over the legacy system, including better range, improved visual fidelity and a new enhanced infrared colourisation to assist with identification.
The AI portion of the system comes in the form of machine learning software that helps with both identification and tracking of airborne objects.
“We were able to acquire small targets such as a bird flying all kinds of patterns,” Wilburn says. “It locked onto it and held that lock.”
US Marine Corps Major Nicholas Ksiasek, a project manager involved in the ERSA upgrade project, says the auto-tracking feature will improve results by reducing the cognitive workload on human operators.
“Instead of trying to hold steady on the airplane, [they] are able to spend more time on things that are better suited, like trying to think about what the intent is of the aircraft,” Ksiasek says.
The new cameras also integrate a laser-based visual warning system that can be used to illuminate the cockpit of unknown aircraft.
Those lasers are already being used on aircraft that deviate from an assigned flight plan, are not in radio contact or are non-compliant with the Federal Aviation Administration’s special flight rules for the Washington, DC area, according to the Pentagon.
“Non-compliant aircraft are aware that, when they see the red-green laser, they need to turn to a heading away from the centre of the flight restricted zone,” says Wilburn.
Using the visual warning laser is informally called “sparkling” in the Pentagon’s air defence parlance.
“There are times that I’ve used it and [aircraft] are responsive to it,” Wilburn adds.
The Pentagon says without the visual warning option, military aircraft would have to be deployed to intercept every unresponsive or non-compliant incident, which it describes as a costly alternative.
Notably, the warning lasers do not cause eye damage and therefore pose no threat to pilots or others.
Colorado-based North American Aerospace Defense Command operates a multi-layered integrated air defence network to constantly monitor the airspace around Washington, DC, including with ground-based radars, surface-to-air guided interceptor missiles and fighter aircraft on alert status.
