Based in Wellesley, Mass., Bodkin Design and Engineering LLC has received a six-month, $70,000 contract from the US Navy to develop a wide-field-of-view camera for the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System. The Office of Naval Research of Arlington, Va., under the Small Business Innovation Research program, is sponsoring the project.

Using a wide-field anamorphic optic, the high-resolution camera is part of a machine vision system that enables the autonomous operation of unmanned air vehicles on aircraft carriers. The technology also has other military and commercial applications, including surveillance and search-and-rescue operations.