Hood Tech’s UAV Imagers Help in Arctic Surveys

June 21, 2012 - PRLog -- Subject:  Hood Tech’s UAV Imagers Help in Arctic Surveys
Contact:  Dr. Lars Bergstrom, Hood Tech Corp Vision, Inc., 541-490-9099, lars@hoodtech.com
According to an article on Frontier Scientists at the web site nature.com (http://blogs.nature.com/frontier_scientists/2012/06/13/unmanned-aircraft-arctic-science-tech), Hood Tech’s imagers and the quiet UAVs on which they fly (used at low altitudes in the arctic) can help with the following:  “surveying marine wildlife, in climate change studies, for path-finding missions, …as aides in emergency response plans, and accessing remote, hard-to-see or dangerous areas like active wildfires, volcano sites or oil spill areas.”  Hood Tech has collaborated closely with the principal researcher featured in the article:  “Gregory Walker, the manager of the unmanned aircraft applications program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, has been putting UAVs to good use, exploring their potential on the Alaskan Frontier”.
When Hood Tech began producing 800-gm video-camera turrets in 1998, it enabled an entirely new class of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).  Hood Technology Corp. Vision, Inc. (Hood Tech) designs and manufactures imaging and video processing systems at the highest level of the National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS):  level 9.  Designed for manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), boats, land vehicles, and stationary mounts, the reliability and utility of Hood Tech’s daylight and thermal imaging products has been demonstrated over more than 600,000 hours of use in a variety of temperatures, humidity, dust, smoke, haze, and other environmental factors (http://www.alticamvision.com).
Hood Technology was founded by Dr. Andy von Flotow in Hood River, Oregon in 1993.  Along with the design and manufacture of stabilized imaging systems, Hood Technology:
•   Develops, tests, and manufactures launch and retrieval systems for a variety of UAVs and
•   Monitors blade vibrations in industrial turbines and jet engines, a diagnostic method for predicting possible future failures.
The Hood Tech web site is:  www.hoodtech.com