1.8 gigapixel camera for peeping from DARPA

At that time, while drones fill the sky with incredible speed over battlefields and university campuses, the United States government is showing genuine interest in equipping such vehicles with modern surveillance technology. The latest of these is the development of DAPRA — a frightening ARGUS-IS — a recording device with an array of sensors totaling 1.8 gigapixel images; Enough, for example, on the half of Manhattan. The latest development for continuous monitoring of vast areas can detect and track moving objects ranging in size from 15 centimeters at altitudes up to 6 kilometers.

But what is most terrifying about this ARGUS (named after Argus Panoptes, a hundred-eyed giant from Greek mythology) is what happens next. The system allows the owner (and ultimately, according to DARPA, artificial intelligence) the ability to analyze the entire city for all sorts of suspicious activities, not only in real time, but also after recording. To do this, the system is supplemented with a storage capacity of about 6 petabytes (6000 terabytes), which store video at a frequency of 12 frames per second per day.

Also interesting is the principle of the system. A huge resolution is obtained from interconnected 368 5-megapixel telephone cameras, that is, everything is produced using purely civilian technologies. Although the story processing is completely different. For real-time monitoring, ARGUS uses both on-board electronics and ground electronics, which require a data channel with a speed of about 600 gigabits per second. Naturally, DARPA does not disclose how they support this speed wirelessly.
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The information was announced in the movie “ The Rise of the UAVs ” on PBS NOVA TV, which was funded, among other things, by one of the creators of the car by Lockheed Martin. While it is not entirely clear where ARGUS will be used, but perhaps we will see it as a payload for the cheap and omnipresent Predator drones. Also, it is hardly worth waiting for this thing to remain in zones of military conflicts - thanks to the initiative of the Department of National Security - the federal aviation agency allocates space in the United States for 30,000 drones for the next 20 years. And we can safely assume that ARGUS will definitely be used to violate the 4th amendment of the constitution .