Get more information on Neptec's OPAL
Neptec’s Obscurant Penetrating Autosynchronous LIDAR, or OPAL provides vision to helicopter crews when their vision has been obscured by brownouts or whiteouts. Caused by the recirculation of dust and/or snow particles, this loss of visual cues has caused helicopters to hit or land on hidden obstacles, resulting in damage and loss of life.
OPAL penetrates clouds of particles, outlining potentially threatening obstacles in or close to the landing zone. OPAL also measures the terrain’s slope, ensuring a safe landing. With a range of about 1 kilometer, OPAL detects wires during a forward flight, providing advanced warning to the pilot.
Unique in its class, OPAL’s penetration and detection capabilities in a cloud of obscurants are second to none. This is, in great part, because of two unique design approaches:
Brownout conditions are caused by a helicopter’s ‘rotorwash’ when approaching a sandy or snowy area. Despite these
conditions, pilots still need to see the landing zone. Akin to
using high beams while driving in foggy weather, typical flash LiDARs and gated laser cameras are easily overwhelmed
by noise from the brownout. OPAL works in these challenging environments because:
OPAL uses a triangulation optic algorithm initially developed for NASA to control the amount of returning light accepted by the Time-of-Flight (ToF) receiver as a function of the target range. OPAL suppresses the return signals from nearby brownouts and, at the same time, retains the sensitivity and dynamic range to detect ground and obstacles inside the brownouts.
