From satellite reconnaissance to WAMI, Gorgon Stare may have started technologies for hyper-surveillance
LIVERMORE, Calif. – In the 1998 Hollywood thriller Enemy of the State, an innocent man (played by Will Smith) is pursued by a rogue spy agency that uses the advanced satellite “Big Daddy” to monitor his every move. Nature reports. Continue reading original article
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
11 June 2019 -- It was, however, much more than just prescient: it was also an inspiration, even a blueprint, for one of the most powerful surveillance technologies ever created.
A researcher (unnamed) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California who saw the movie at its debut decided to “explore — theoretically, at first — how emerging digital-imaging technology could be affixed to a satellite” to craft something like Big Daddy.
He traces the development of that technology, called wide-area motion imagery (WAMI), by the U.S. military from 2001. A camera on steroids, WAMI can capture images of large areas, in some cases an entire city.
Related: HPEC enables onboard data processing for persistent surveillance
Related: Maintaining a constant reconnaissance eye
John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics