A new iPad app aims to give soldiers on the street a bird’s eye view of the combat zone.

Tom Kaneshige

An iPad app that may soon play a pivotal role connecting soldiers on the street with airplanes hovering high above will be shown for the first time next month at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas.

The app, created by Harris Corp., a tech vendor with $6 billion in annual revenue, will let U.S. soldiers in war zones remotely control cameras mounted on tethered balloons and other unmanned aerial vehicles (or UAVs, in the parlance of the military set) using their iPhones and iPads.

Like John Madden breaking down a football play, soldiers can mark up the images or video captured by the remote cameras, chat with other soldiers in the area, and take pictures and video directly on their iPhones and iPad 2s via the app.

All of this information is fed into Harris Corp.’s full-motion video asset management engine (FAME) at a command center where it is quickly analyzed. Results are sent back to the soldier in the field.

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