By Tom Spears,
The Ottawa Citizen
April 30, 2009
An Ottawa aerospace company that builds equipment to help astronauts see has developed a way for helicopter pilots to see through dust clouds that nearly blind their normal vision.
Neptec Design Group's laser-based "lidar" system has now passed a major field test in a dusty landing zone near Yuma, Arizona.
Its new device called OPAL works as part of an "Augmented Visionics System" (AVS) made by CAE, the aircraft simulator maker, said Neptec president Iain Christie.
"When you go to land a helicopter in a dusty place like Iraq or Afghanistan, you really, really, really want to see what's going on around you, and suddenly you can't see anything but brown. They call it brownout," Christie said in an interview Wednesday.
The wind or "rotorwash" from big military helicopters stirs up extra dust, especially if they fly in groups.
It gets even worse at night.
All this can limit the opportunities to fly places: The helicopter can get there, but the pilot can't see to land safely.
A similar thing happens in snow.
CAE had created a simulated outside view for the pilot -- based on stored data of a landing zone. The idea is that the pilot can look at that instead of peering out a window.
Still, the computer's stored map of the landing zone may not be perfect. The reality could have holes or small rocks or a parked vehicle.
Neptec has now added a vision system that was first developed to help spacecraft dock with a space station in orbit, where normal vision is also difficult.
It uses lidar — similar to radar, but using laser light instead of radio waves. Lidar cuts straight through dust clouds.
Last month, Neptec and CAE took their invention to the U.S. army's landing proving ground in Yuma, where a landing zone was set up to mimic dusty conditions in Iraq.
A helicopter flew in to stir up dust, and the vision system was able to "see" through it. Further tests are set for this summer -- this time, with a pilot actually using the lidar system to land.
"We have now proven the technology, and now it's time to put the integrated system together, and go fly," Christie said.
"At this part we're not part of any formal tests by any government agency," he said, but the company has been working with potential customers who are eager to see the device tested.
"We'll be inviting customers to witness testing or participate in it.
"The core technology is actually the same" in the helicopter and space shuttle systems, he said.
"Ottawa's kind of known as a telecom high-tech centre," he said. "There is also a cluster of companies here, including Neptec, that are high-tech aerospace and defence companies, that are also world leaders."
Neptec's new project has cost "in the millions of dollars" over the past five years.
CAE said it would develop the AVS system further under its recently announced "Project Falcon," a $714-million research and development program at CAE, partially funded by various levels of government, that will span the next five years.