Darkened streets, tops of buildings and open areas at night–once the bane of police forces–are no longer safe refuges for lawbreakers as increasing numbers of law-enforcement aviation units adopt infrared technology for covert criminal surveillance, tracking and subsequent capture. AIN recently visited FLIR Systems, one of the world’s leading infrared equipment developers and manufacturers, at its facility in Portland, Ore.
The company’s name derives from the acronym for forward-looking infrared–a description first coined in the early post-World War II era, when the technology was in its infancy and airborne systems were installed to look only at objects directly ahead of the aircraft. Today, FLIR Systems builds units whose gimballed infrared sensor “eyes” can be slewed to point at targets anywhere through 360 degrees around the aircraft, as well as above and below it.
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