HPWREN, March 2003
As a continuation of the activities outlined in our original motion detect camera paper a telescope was attached as the lens to an IQeye3 camera.
This enhanced camera directly supports a wireless radio as an inserted PCMCIA card, which even allows for the attachment of an external antenna.
The telescope has the capability to be computer-controlled, which significantly enhanced fine-grained control over the direction the telescope was pointing at. In an initial experiment, it was looking at an airport, almost three miles away, with the motion-sensing capability being able to automatically track moving vehicles:
as well as airplanes taking off or landing.
In addition, using a normal lens, rather than the telescope, one of the cameras was able to capture a flying bird at the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve:
The images had been automatically collected, and can easily trigger alerts, for example by triggering an email message that may go to a pager.
It should be noted that this technology is easily available, and not very expensive. The camera with the wireless card option was costing less than $2,000, and the telescope about $500.