Hood Technologies are the pioneers in developing video-camera turrets for UAVs. They had started making them as early as 1998. The first video-camera turret that they developed was 800 g for use in small UAVs.
Images taken by Alticamvision UAV Camera
Nowadays customers are demanding for camera turrets that are rated by the National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS). Dr. Andy von Flotow from Hood technology explained that the NIIRS-9 is the latest rating in demand, which is ahead of NIIRS-8 rating. He added that vision systems from Hood Technology satisfy the NIIRS-9 rating and provide high-quality images for use in real-time intelligence and reconnaissance missions undertaken by airborne UAVs across the world.
Hood Technology Vision specifically deals with the development and manufacture of video and imaging systems that are used in both manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, land vehicles and stationary mounts. These systems capture and process the images taken. These vision systems have been incorporated in UAVs and have served over 500,000 h in operation. These systems are extremely rugged and are tolerant to extremes of environmental conditions like temperature, humidity, dust haze, smoke and other environmental parameters. Dr. Andy was the founder of the company which is based at Oregon. Apart from vision systems the company tests, designs and fabricates retrieval and launch systems for UAVs, industrial devices such as blades for turbines and jet engines.
Source: http://www.alticamvision.com/