SQ series · Two-axis · EO + IR + LRF + laser designator

SQ-290T two-axis laser designator pod

A two-axis laser designator pod for heavy fixed-wing platforms, helicopters and maritime patrol aircraft. The long-range designator: 10 km ranging, a 300 mm thermal zoom and a 290 mm turret.

Weight 15 kg
Two-axis stabilised
EO 1920 × 1080
Thermal 640 × 512
LRF 300 m – 10 km (± 1 m)
AI detection & tracking

CE / RoHS documentation available on request
Export compliance statement available on request
Calibration and test report supplied with every unit

What the SQ-290T is

The SQ-290T is the 15 kg designator in a Φ290 × 375.5 mm turret. Its daylight channel is a 13x group running 15 to 200 mm, which never goes wide, and that is where 7.2 km on a person and 16.7 km on a vehicle come from. The thermal core is a 640 × 512 array on a continuous 15 to 300 mm zoom returning 6.7 km and 22.7 km, which is where the night channel overtakes the daylight one here. Ranging reaches 10 km from 300 m, designation runs at 1064 nm, and draw is 50 W / 300 W.

Two zooms, both pointed at the far end

The daylight optic never opens wide. The thermal one does, and that split is the working method.

EO / visible

1920 × 1080, 13x zoom 15 – 200 mm

7.2 km person, 16.7 km vehicle. Its wide end is 15 mm, so there is no sweeping.

Thermal / IR

640 × 512, continuous zoom 15 – 300 mm

6.7 km person, 22.7 km vehicle.

Laser rangefinder

300 m – 10 km (± 1 m)

1535 nm, eye-safe, feeding the coordinate solution.

Laser designator

1064 nm

Marks a contact both imaging channels agree on.

A 13x ratio is what a long lens looks like

Fifteen to two hundred millimetres is a 13x span, narrow beside the 30x optics lower in the family, and the ratio follows from where the range starts. A 15 mm wide end already frames a small area, leaving little travel to spend magnification on. What it gives up in flexibility comes back as reach: 7.2 km on a person, with a 300 mm thermal zoom alongside.

Daylight EO imagery from a HITS camera payload with vehicles detected and boxed automatically — EO / visible channel: vehicles detected and boxed automatically in the live feed.

300 mm of thermal, and what it does to the search

Fifteen to 300 mm in one barrel makes the night channel both a search and a recognition instrument. The wide end covers a stretch of coastline, the long end returns 22.7 km on a vehicle, and no aperture change sits between them. Against 200 mm of daylight, the night path is the longer of the two here, which is worth planning around.

Thermal imagery from a HITS camera payload with a target held by the onboard tracker — Thermal channel: white-hot imagery with the tracker holding a moving target.

Ten kilometres of measurement, from 300 m out

The band is 300 m to 10 km at ± 1 m, eye-safe at 1535 nm, which is what an aircraft at standoff needs. Detection at 22.7 km without a measurement leaves the crew estimating; a return at 10 km hands the station a position. Inside 300 m the task is imaging, not ranging.

HITS ground station showing UAV payload video with target coordinates — Ground station: payload video with live target coordinates and sensor status.

Two zooms and a 10 km laser, all pointed the same way. Every figure on the sheet is chosen for the case where the aircraft is never going to be close.

Stabilisation and mechanical design

Fifteen kilograms is the design case

Two axes carry 15 kg of glass, housing and laser bench, and that mass is what the mount exists for. Brushless motors sit on their frames, encoder feedback closes the loop with no reduction stage, and boresight holds ≤ 100 μrad (1σ) with ≥ 60°/s in hand. A 300 mm barrel moving inside 15 kg is a large inertia to arrest.

Φ290 × 375.5 mm, 300 W at peak

The envelope is Φ290 × 375.5 mm on 11–28 VDC, 50 W cruise and 300 W peak. That peak is the designator and the 10 km laser, not the gimbals. With a generator behind the aircraft the electrical margin is easier to find than the structural one.

Detection and tracking at the edge

Classification where the range ends

At 22.7 km the frame is small and the link is the weaker half of the chain, so the detector runs inside the pod and marks people, vehicles, vessels and aircraft before compression. A box that arrives with the video needs no recomputing.

Two zooms, one lock

Twenty targets can be held with one actively locked, and the tracker carries that lock through a focal-length change on either channel as well as through rotation. Two zoom groups let the operator move wide and narrow without losing the contact.

Fitting a 15 kg turret to an airframe

This is a structural installation. The numbers below are what to design the hard point around.

The 300 mm barrel and the laser bench sit ahead of the yoke, so the centre of gravity moves as that barrel zooms. A bracket drawn for the parked mass shows that movement as sag at the long end, and at 10 km a sag is a miss.

Hard point and envelope

Φ290 × 375.5 mm at 15 kg needs a mount engineered for the mass, not a plate adapted to it. A quick-release face sits on an isolated base, with adapter plates for a bolt circle that differs from ours; at this weight any compliance reads as line-of-sight error at 10 km.

Supply, data and environment

Power is 11–28 VDC, with 300 W to find at peak. Serial control covers RS-422, RS-232 and TTL, and SBUS or MAVLink is accepted. Imagery leaves as H.264 or H.265 over 100 Mbps Ethernet into 128 GB on board; the sealed housing runs −20 °C to +60 °C and stores from −40 °C to +70 °C. The technology pages carry the range-wide layer.

SQ-290T gimbal camera payload integrated on a fixed-wing UAV with ground control station

On the aircraft

Turret, harness and station. At 15 kg the airframe carries the pod, and the mount is part of the airframe design.

A 15 kg installation usually opens with a drawing review, so the outline and pinout are released first, then protocol, pipeline note, calibration record and test report with the hardware. Everything is export-reviewed.

Where the SQ-290T is used

Three roles for an aircraft that stays at standoff and never closes.

Maritime and border patrol
A patrol aircraft on a long orbit over water is the case this pod was drawn for. The 300 mm thermal end returns 22.7 km on a vehicle-sized contact, the laser fixes a position without descending, and the designator marks a vessel for an intercept already under way. Fifteen kilograms is a normal load on a maritime platform.
UAV surveillance →
Long-range identification over land
Where the requirement is a positive identification at a distance the aircraft cannot safely leave its orbit to reach, the 200 mm daylight end and the 300 mm thermal end both work from standoff. A person at 7.2 km by day and 6.7 km by thermal is an identification task rather than a detection one, and 16.7 km on a vehicle sets the scale of the scene the pod can police.
Long-range imaging →
Unmanned helicopter ISR
An unmanned rotorcraft holds a hover, and a long lens benefits from a stable platform. The 15 kg turret sits on a hard point drawn for it, the two zooms let the operator work wide and narrow without an aperture change, and the same control protocol as the lighter heads means the station does not change with the pod.
Drone helicopter cameras →

Full specifications

Model	SQ-290T
Series	Laser Designator Pods (SQ series)
Stabilisation	Two-axis gyro-stabilised, ≤ 100 μrad
Sensor configuration	EO + IR + LRF + laser designator
Visible channel	1920 × 1080, 13x zoom 15 – 200 mm
Thermal channel	640 × 512, continuous zoom 15 – 300 mm
Laser rangefinder	300 m – 10 km (± 1 m)
Weight	≤15 kg
Dimensions	≤Φ290 × 375.5 mm
Power consumption	50 W / 300 W
Detection (EO)	7.2 km person / 16.7 km vehicle
Detection (IR)	6.7 km person / 22.7 km vehicle

Detection distances follow the standard 1.7 m person / 2.3 m vehicle convention. Rows marked as shared are common across the SQ series.

Control software: Windows as standard. An Android version can be customised for OEM/ODM projects.

Shared across the SQ series

Video output: Ethernet, H.264 / H.265
Gimbal control: RS-422 / RS-232 / TTL, SBUS, MAVLink
Input voltage: 11–28 VDC
Operating temperature: −20 °C to +60 °C
Sealing: Sealed housing for dust, wind and rotor wash
Recording: On-board recording, imagery retained if the link drops
AI module: Onboard detection, classification and multi-target tracking
Mounting: Quick-release interface, adapters available for OEM (original equipment manufacturer) airframes

Three-view outline drawing with connector pinout, available on request.

Outline and interface drawingThree-view outline with dimensions and the connector pinout for this head. The drawing set is released with the datasheet — ask for it with your quotation and we will send the PDF for your airframe review.

Questions engineers ask about the SQ-290T

How far does the SQ-290T detect a person or a vehicle?

Daylight gives 7.2 km on a person and 16.7 km on a vehicle, thermal gives 6.7 km and 22.7 km, at the usual 1.7 m and 2.3 m. Both are detection figures; recognition and identification land closer in.

What are the order terms and the delivery time?

One unit covers a stock configuration, with custom builds from 100. A pod held in inventory is dispatched as it stands, so the interval is freight; a bespoke or volume run takes its date from the quotation. Settlement is T/T and the warranty is a year from delivery.

Why is the daylight zoom only 13x when lighter pods carry 30x?

Because the wide end starts at 15 mm rather than 4.3 mm. Magnification ratio is the span between the two ends of a barrel, and a lens that never goes wide has less span to cover. The 200 mm long end is what the 13x buys, and it produces 16.7 km of vehicle detection against 15 km on the lighter pods.

What does a 15 kg turret cost the aircraft electrically?

50 W at cruise, 300 W at peak, from an 11–28 VDC rail. The peak belongs to the designator and the 10 km laser firing, not to the gimbals, so it is intermittent; size the supply on 300 W and the endurance sum on 50 W. Duty cycle is a configuration question for the quotation.

Designed and manufactured by HITS

Optics, servo hardware, stabilisation firmware and the AI tracking module are developed in house, and every unit is assembled, calibrated and environmentally tested on our own line before it ships.

HITS engineer testing a stabilised gimbal camera payload on the test bench before dispatch

Production line assembling stabilised gimbal camera payloads at the HITS factory

Engineer assembling the internal components of a HITS stabilised gimbal camera payload

Gimbal payloads on the calibration and environmental test rack at the HITS factory

Next steps for this payload: how it is inspected and tested · export licensing and documentation · ordering and integration FAQ

Request a quotation for the SQ-290T

Tell us the platform, the range you need to identify and how many units you are planning. Every configuration is quoted individually, so you get a written price against your own requirement rather than a list figure that does not fit it. We answer within one working day.

MOQFrom 1 unit

Small ordersUsually held in stock, shipped straight away

Volume ordersDelivery schedule confirmed with your quotation

Reply timeWithin one working day

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