Today, a competitive company cannot forbear the constant search for innovative solutions; this is true especially in a sector like those of A.ST.IM, which, not by chance, devotes considerable resources to an intense and continuous R&D program, to which a growing amount is allocated each year, about 10% of turnover.
Between the various activities in this field, in the last year the R&D department has focused on developing a real-time proprietary data and image encryption system for military and security applications, to protect sites with particular strategic interest.
This enterprise-funded research and development project has created a solution based on an encryption algorithm capable of encoding and encrypting in real time all video data coming from different types of sensors (IR/TV) using a hardware acceleration available on most modern CPUs and GPUs. The result is a secure data recording system, essentially impossible to decipher in time, which generates a fully encrypted videos in accordance with AES-256/AES-512 standards, including metadata. In this way it’s possible to transmit them, if the data sharing is required with remote command and control center , using military and civilian communication channels, even those 100% unsafe.
The software detects automatically the installed hardware and selects the best available methods on CPU, GPU or both; if no hardware accelerations is available, the software fallback automatically to the software-only encoding and encryption. This allows you to minimize hardware overload using low cost HW solutions, as well as unsafe communication channels for transmitting or storing sensitive data within the system.
Developed thanks to the company engineering know-how in software, the solution was completed this year with innovative Video Tracking and Image Enhancement algorithms, developing new features in different areas: Automatic Object Detection and Target Tracking, thanks to Multiple algorithm capability (Centroid, Correlation, Scene, Phase Correlation, Combined), Multiple target track and Moving target detection; Image Enhancement with Advanced Real-Time Digital HD image processing engine and Multiple algorithm capability (Electronic Image Stabilization, Image Blending, Digital Contrast Enhancement, Highlights Target, IR/TV Image Fusion, Local Area Contrast Processing, Edge Sharpening, Image Noise Reduction, Picture In Picture), and Surveillance Mode (Real-time video panorama stitching with marked detected target and relative info, Azimuth scan sectors).
The innovative solution has already been applied to various products, such as the SeaGuardian family (EOSS and TMS), and to products upgrade already provided to customers to which A.ST.I.M. offers constant and evolutive support, it can also be applied to all products that integrate THERMONAV® technology. With the development of these new technologies, the company intends give to its systems, destined to the military market, new operational capabilities, in particular way, the full IRST (Infrared Search & Track) capabilities; and not only, in fact, the design has been market-oriented, developing a subsystem that is independent of the products in which it will be inserted, giving in this way the possibility of its installation within solutions developed by other companies operating on the same market.