With strong ties to MIT and building out from earlier Department of Defense suport and involvement, the 3DEO's name speaks to that in-depth history of 3 Dimensional Electro Optic imaging being employed to address the practical business application of making the sky safer - bringing detailed 3D imaging to new frontiers in commercial application: effective air traffic monitoring of drones. Recent years have seen a major expansion of drone use to a wide range of applications having the potential of creating a chaotic autonomous aerial vehicles use and the major potential for collisions. 3DEO is taking 3D imaging technology, originally developed for the military, and applying it to the detection and tracking of small drones anywhere from highly-complex urban areas to sports venues to airports. Additionally, 3DEO is developing compact 3D imaging systems to fly on drones for land surveying, law enforcement, risk assessment, and humanitarian relief possibilities. Until now, such uses have been limited because the technology has been big and expensive. As part of its partnership with the Department of Defense, MIT developed lidar technology that can cost-effectively and rapidly collect 3D images from far distances making the potential of taking defense-related work that can be used by wider set of users.
