ALLFlight - A sensor based conformal 3D situational awareness display for a wide field of view helmet mounted display

Abstract

In the present situation, helicopter missions can be hindered by adverse visual conditions. Supporting a helicopter pilot during landings and take-offs in a degraded visual environment (DVE) is one of the challenges within DLR's project ALLFlight (Assisted Low Level Flight and Landing on Unprepared Landing Sites). Complementary types of sensors (TV, Infrared, radar and Ladar) are mounted onto DLR’s research helicopter for gathering different sensor data of the surrounding world. A high performance computer cluster architecture acquires and fuses all the information to get one single comprehensive description of the outside situation. Especially under whiteout or brownout conditions, a visualization of relevant information on a helmet mounted system can yield a broader mission potential of the helicopter. Recently, DLR has integrated a wide field of view binocular helmet mounted display system (JedEye) produced by Elbit (Israel) into both the research helicopter ACT/FHS and the Generic Cockpit Simulator GECO. The system can increase the situational awareness especially under degraded visual conditions by displaying an adequate symbology. A variety of different video input formats can be used to present the current situation around the helicopter. In order to provide a synthetic vision display on the helmet mounted system, it requires a very precise measurement of the line of sight (LOS) in conformance with the head movements of the pilot with minimal latency between LOS measurement and image presentation. Otherwise Level 1 handling qualities cannot be guaranteed and if conformal symbology does not correspond to the real world, an increasing irritation and possible sickness of the pilot after a few minutes can occur.