The recent presentation of the start-up company Lambda Automata at the “Investing in Deep Tech: Dual-Use Technologies” conference held at the Hellenic Armed Forces Officers Club in Athens constituted an excellent opportunity to present the company’s autonomous dual-use surveillance system.

The event, organized by the General Directorate of Defence Investments and Armaments (GDDIA) of the Ministry of National Defence, in collaboration with the National Scientific Research Centre “Dimokritos”, highlighted the innovation and practical value of dual-use technological solutions, demonstrating their maturity and significant contribution in the fields of defence and civil use.

Mr. Dimitrios Kottas, Co-Founder of Lambda Automata

Mr. Dimitrios Kottas, co-founder of Lambda Automata, presented the company’s integrated autonomous surveillance solution, which allows real-time gathering of intelligence on the field, practically establishing the digital transformation of operations having now entered the era of autonomous and asymmetric warfare.

According to Mr. Kottas, the company’s products are built to operate autonomously in adverse and remote environments with minimal to no supervision by leveraging the latest technology in computer vision, which is a field of artificial intelligence (AI) that trains and enables computers to extract essential information from various sources, such as digital images and video, autonomous systems, and their rapid manufacturing.

Lambda Automata’s solution finds application in a range of missions from protecting forests and critical infrastructure to monitoring extensive coastlines and land borders.

Also read: INVESTING IN DEEP-TECH: DUAL-USE TECHNOLOGIES | The NIF and DIANA in Greece

In particular, the company’s Autonomous Surveillance System consists of multiple autonomous surveillance, tracking, and threat processing grids, interconnected through Artificial Intelligence (AI), allowing seamless access and control of data in real-time, as you can see in the video below.

Conflict happens everywhere. Outside of urban areas, challenging terrain in remote locations prevents personnel from gathering the intelligence they need. To enable decision-making in the field, Lambda Automata introduces Jericho: a portable communications device with high… pic.twitter.com/5GFfD3NyCt

— Lambda Automata (@lambda_automata) March 25, 2024

LAST – Lambda Automated Surveillance Tower

First of all, the observation networks in question incorporate the LAST tower using Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components and an integrated sensor suite, which enables surveillance and coverage of large dense areas, even in the most remote locations.

The tower setup carries a camera for fully passive tracking for both day and night, while the company uses software that can:

• Assign geographic coordinates to image information (geo-tag);
• Classify detected objects or events of interest;
• Group objects related to the same incident as a single event;
• Geotag potential threats without using active sensors such as radar or laser rangefinders.

One more advantage of the said tower is that its installation does not require infrastructure, but is rather characterized by ease of assembly and transport, since none of the components weigh more than 20 kg. In fact, energy sufficiency is ensured by batteries and photovoltaic systems.

The company offers the tower layout in four different variants:

• LAST-90:  Detection of person at 0.6 km, vehicle at 1 km, and vessel at 1 km during the day
• LAST-300: Detection of person at 2.5 km, vehicle at 4 km, and vessel at 4 km during the day
• LAST-1700 (the version shown in the demo video): Detection of person at 1.7 km, vehicle at 4 km, and vessel at 5 km at night
• LAST-  ΧΧ00: no data released for overnight use

MP-LAST – Man-portable LAST

In addition, the company has developed two versions of an autonomous man-portable tower (MP-Last / Mini MP-Last), characterized by the lack of magnetic properties, GPS, compass, or laser. Both can be deployed in a short time (the MP-LAST in minutes and the Mini MP-LAST in seconds) with the former having 24 hours of battery life and the latter 12 hours.

Mini MP-Last technical characteristics:

• Height: 1.9 meters in full deployment / 0.2 meters in transport configuration
• Length: 0.5 meters in full deployment / 0.5 meters in transport configuration
• Width: 0.3 meters in full deployment / 0.3 meters in transport arrangement

MP-Last technical characteristics:

• Height: 2.1 meters in full development / 0.65 meters in transport arrangement
• Length: 1.1 meters in full deployment / 0.6 meters in transport configuration
• Width: 0.7 meters in full deployment / 0.5 meters in transport configuration

JERICHO

Jericho

In addition, Lambda Automata demonstrated the Jericho system live at the conference, which functions as a portable communications device with a high degree of connectivity and round-the-clock operation.

This system allows the complete connection, monitoring, and control of a surveillance network consisting of the aforementioned systems from remote locations. Furthermore, it can fully and autonomously perform the exchange of tactical information anywhere and anytime on the battlefield.

A remote controller for operating any commercially available drone can also be seen. Essentially, Jericho acts as the main node of the Surveillance Network by integrating different communication protocols (primary, alternate, emergency via satellite, 3G/4G network, and UHF/VHF radio frequencies).

At the same time, the system enables the user to view and analyze the map-based information collected from systems which operate at fleet level with multi-user input.

Also read: Lambda Automata | The startup that manufactures surveillance towers “raises” 6 million euros

Just last October, Lambda Automata announced the successful completion of a new financing of €6 million, while recently a delegation of the Development Command (DEVCOM) of the US Army visited Lambda Automata, where officials of the Greek company informed them about the activities, the products they have developed, those under development and their future plans, which extend beyond borders.

The visit to Lambda Automata is part of a search for companies that develop technologies that can be used by the US Army.

Also read: DEFEA 2023 | Start-up Lambda (λ) Automata has impressed with its innovative autonomous surveillance solutions