The United States military has been making great strides with the development and use of unmanned drones  for some time now. Military drones are generally used to gather intel and perform reconnaissance missions into enemy territory or other hostile environments. Thankfully, such technology allows for a vast array of benefits, perhaps most importantly eliminating the need of placing soldier’s lives in danger during recon missions.

While most drones utilized by the military take the shape of airplanes, the new Argus-IS is a different breed of drone that takes the form of a helicopter. While planes require space to take off and land, the Argus-IS does not.

That, of course, isn’t the only attribute that makes the Argus-IS a formidable new piece of military tech. We all know how fond the military is of acronyms and the Argus-IS, which stands for Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance-Imaging System doesn’t disappoint. However, it’s not the Argus-IS’ long name that impresses, or even its ability to hover in place or take off without a landing strip, what truly sets the Argus-IS apart from other drones is its 1.8 gigapixel camera.

The extremely accurate and high-def camera allows the Argus-Is to deliver 900 times the resolution of a standard 2-megapixel camera and can also deliver real-time video streams at 10 frames per second. This gives the Argus-Is the ability to track not only vehicles, but people as well from altitudes as high as 20,000 feet. In addition, the Argus-Is is capable simultaneously locking onto multiple “windows” at one time, allowing the military to trace and track multiple “windows” without having to give up pursuit of another.

Currently, the Argus-IS is undergoing testing, but will reportedly be deployed in Afghanistan by the end of the new year.