Motorola Solutions buys UK thermal camera company Silent Sentinel

LONDON (Reuters) – Motorola Solutions (NYSE:) said on Wednesday it had bought British long-range thermal camera specialist Silent Sentinel to bolster its video security capabilities in locations like airports and oil and gas facilities.

The U.S. company’s chief technology officer, Mahesh Saptharishi, said Silent Sentinel had an “incredible strength” in thermographic imagining, with its cameras able to spot anomalies up to 30 kilometres away.

Its technology was particularly valuable in airports, where large areas had to be protected from threats such as drones, he said.

“When you combine really highly accurate thermal pan tilt zoom cameras with a radar module that is integrated, it gives you the ability to very quickly detect potential targets approaching the perimeter,” he said in an interview.

Motorola Solutions, created when Motorola split into two in 2011, is focused on public safety and enterprise security products and services, and it has grown its video operations through a string of acquisitions in recent years.

The company has invested around $12 billion in research and development and acquisitions since 2015, Saptharishi said.

The terms of the Silent Sentinel deal were not disclosed.