Technest Holdings has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Genex Technologies has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract by the US Navy.
The contract is to develop a compact pan/tilt/zoom optical sensor that will result in providing Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV) significantly improved optical sensing capabilities.
The announcement was made by Dr. Joe Mackin, President of Technest Holdings.
This newly designed optical sensor will be used by the US Navy for close range machine vision applications, specifically carrier flight deck operations and autonomous air-to-air refueling.
Genex Technologies has developed a unique airborne optical sensor named OmniBird which is designed specifically for use onboard UCAV. OmniBird can see images at ranges which vary from 5 ft to 250 ft away during both daylight and low light conditions.
The company believes that OmniBird can be used in a broad range of military and civilian applications involving automatic target detection, tracking, and classification as well as surveillance.
Dr. Joe Mackin President of Technest Holdings stated, "This project is a great example of our corporate mission of transforming laboratory technology into real world products. We believe that these types of government funded product development programs will help us to continue to grow our present funded backlog of business which exceeds $60M at our EOIR Technologies and Genex Technologies subsidiaries."
