Armoured Military Truck — From Video Interference on 11 Cameras to a Clean Picture with Isolated Power

A leading Turkish manufacturer of armoured vehicles and military truck platforms had integrated an 11-camera vision system on its armoured truck platform. The cameras were vehicle cameras from TEDEG's TDG-CAM range, and the images were shown to the driver and commander on a military display in the cab.

The system worked on the vehicle, but image quality fell short. Feedback from the manufacturer's field and acceptance trials was consistent: the images on the display were jagged, noisy and not sharp. At first it was not clear whether the cameras or the display were at fault; each unit worked without problems on its own.

In 2025 the manufacturer came to TEDEG Defence with one question: can this interference be eliminated? The expectation was a permanent fix on the vehicle, suitable for series production, without changing the camera or display hardware.

TEDEG engineers examined the camera, display and power chain together on the vehicle. The cameras and the display were sound; the problem lay in how the power was connected to the vehicle:

• Common ground: the cameras were fed from lines tied directly to the vehicle battery and vehicle GND, that is, the chassis. The camera supply return and the video line reference shared the same vehicle ground.
• Ground loops: with 11 cameras placed at different points on the vehicle, each one was grounded to the chassis at a different point. Small potential differences between those points turned into loop currents flowing through the video lines.
• Vehicle noise: transients and ripple from cranking, the alternator and load switching rode straight onto the video signal through the common ground.
• The result on the display: jagged edges, interference lines and an unsharp picture, which made situational awareness unreliable for the driver and commander.
• Fixes that did not last: rerouting cables or adding filters could reduce the symptom but did not remove its cause.

The diagnosis was clear: the camera system's power had to be isolated from the vehicle electrics, and the cameras' GND had to be completely independent of the vehicle ground.

TEDEG Defence turned the diagnosis directly into a product and developed a fully isolated camera power module for this platform: SENTRA KBM. The module takes the vehicle's 28 VDC supply, powers each camera from its own isolated output and separates the camera-side ground from the vehicle chassis. Configuration, pin assignments and harness interfaces were finalised for the manufacturer's platform through an ICD.

The isolated power module was delivered to the manufacturer and became the platform's standard camera supply. Today it is in service on close to 60 vehicles.

• The jagged edges and interference on the display were removed at the source, by separating the camera ground from the vehicle ground.
• The camera and display hardware stayed the same; the fix is entirely on the power side.
• Each of the 11 cameras is fed from its own isolated output.
• Power and video share one MIL-DTL-38999 connector per camera, on a single harness.
• The same solution is applied identically to every vehicle in series production.