At AUSA this week, iRobot was displaying Chatten’s Associates Head-Aimed Remote Viewer (HARV) application mounted on the chassie of iRobot’s PackBot.   

HARV. Photo: Chatten Associates

The HARV is a gimbaled camera mount that can be controlled either by a joystick or by a “head-aimed” application, which mimics the user’s head motions when the user dons goggles with display screens in the lenses. The standard system has 5 milliradian accuracy with a 600 degree per second slew rate in azimuth.

The HARV has two variants: A two axis version that can accommodate both a 640 x 480 thermal imager and a 36:1 optical zoom daylight camera; while the three axis version maxes out at a 320 x 240 thermal imager and the 36:1 optical zoom daylight camera. The gimbal can also carry an ultra-low-light camera instead of a thermal imager, and comes with both infrared and white light illuminators. The gimbal also has both visible and infrared laser pointers, as well as stereo audio microphones. 

The HARV is 6.25’ in diameter and weighs less than 7 pounds.