July 7, 2020: An Israeli firm has developed MicroLite, an 11 kg (25 pound) gimballed sensor that can be carried by small UAVs or any larger aircraft and can capture highly detailed 3-D color images of what it below. This is an updated use of the Constant Hawk system developed by the U.S. military and first used during 2006 in Iraq. Constant Hawk uses a special video camera system to observe a locality and find useful patterns of behavior. Some of the Constant Hawk systems are mounted on light (MC-12s, mainly) aircraft, others are mounted on ground structures. Special software compares photos from different times. When changes are noted, they are checked more closely, which has resulted in the early detection of thousands of roadside bombs and terrorist ambushes. This largely eliminated roadside bomb attacks on supply convoys in Iraq, which traveled the same routes all the time. But those routes were also watched by Constant Hawk. No matter what the enemy did, the Hawk noticed. Eventually the Hawk, and several other efforts, morphed into a campaign in Iraq that led to the death of over 3,000 terrorists caught in the act of setting up roadside bombs or lying in wait to set them off and attack their victims with gunfire. Hundreds more terrorists were captured, and many thousands of roadside bombs were avoided or destroyed before they could go off. There were also electronic monitoring versions of this tech called Caesar and VADER which used small aircraft or UAVs to patrol an area picking up a wide variety of electronic signals and looking for useful (to troops or counterterror operators) patterns. When combined with Constant Hawk these systems did major damage to enemy forces, especially Islamic terrorists, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Work on Constant Hawk technology continued with lighter and more detailed cameras developed along with software that could more quickly and accurately spot useful information. MicroLite is the latest iteration of that trend. With MicroLite, brigade or battalion commander can have their own Constant Hawk capability in the area they are responsible for. Same with police and counterterror organizations.