OUR FUTURE Advanced Technologies Take CAP Beyond the Eyeball
Access to high-tech equipment will always be important for CAP, since its members train extensively for their missions and depend on the organization to provide the resources they need. CAP already owns a fleet of 550 single-engine aircraft, hangared in strategic locations throughout the country, for members to use. Now CAP is purchasing new equipment – radios, digital cameras, laptops, digital satellite phone systems and new aircraft – all to make CAP an even better-equipped and cost-effective resource. CAP has an all-volunteer Advanced Technologies Group to keep an eye on high-tech breakthroughs that might impact future missions.
Among those breakthroughs CAP has tested are personal locator beacons, night vision, infrared imaging and hyperspectral imaging. CAP has also testing digital satellite communications for transmitting photos and video in real time from search sites back to mission bases. With such technology as the super-accurate High Frequency Surface Wave Radar, CAP can identify suspected targets and call in probable locations to waiting aircraft. The planes can then go to those locations for crews to take high-resolution photos for fast transmission to the ground.
With hyperspectral imaging systems, CAP can have sensors onboard aircraft to detect and/or gather reflected light from man-made or natural objects on the ground. This form of imaging can discriminate among materials based on physical properties, depending on how the materials reflect or emit light.
CAP’s Advanced Technologies Group continues to identify the best equipment on the market today, figure out how it can work with existing equipment and follow up with extensive field testing.
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Access to high-tech equipment will always be important for CAP, since its members train extensively for their missions and depend on the organization to provide the resources they need. CAP already owns a fleet of 550 single-engine aircraft, hangared in strategic locations throughout the country, for members to use. Now CAP is purchasing new equipment – radios, digital cameras, laptops, digital satellite phone systems and new aircraft – all to make CAP an even better-equipped and cost-effective resource. CAP has an all-volunteer Advanced Technologies Group to keep an eye on high-tech breakthroughs that might impact future missions.
Among those breakthroughs CAP has tested are personal locator beacons, night vision, infrared imaging and hyperspectral imaging. CAP has also testing digital satellite communications for transmitting photos and video in real time from search sites back to mission bases. With such technology as the super-accurate High Frequency Surface Wave Radar, CAP can identify suspected targets and call in probable locations to waiting aircraft. The planes can then go to those locations for crews to take high-resolution photos for fast transmission to the ground.
With hyperspectral imaging systems, CAP can have sensors onboard aircraft to detect and/or gather reflected light from man-made or natural objects on the ground. This form of imaging can discriminate among materials based on physical properties, depending on how the materials reflect or emit light.
