got geoint?

The Army has launched a new laser-based 3D mapping robot that can create imagery of the surrounding area by using lasers. It uses a mirror-based LIDAR system that “bounces a laser off a rapidly rotating mirror and gleans environmental information from how long it takes for each pulse to bounce back.” Called ROAMS (Remotely Operated and Autonomous Mapping System) the robot created by researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ, with funding from the U.S. Army. It uses several existing mapping technologies to build 3D color maps of its surroundings, and it was demonstrated at the 2009 IEEE conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications in Woburn, MA. So, is this the next generation of GEOINT? To us, it seems like an excellent addition to providing situational awareness for the warfighter. What do you all think?

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