(Credit:
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.)
There are many challenges in waging war for oil, not the least of which is fighting in a big sandbox--it's hard on soldiers and it's murder on helicopters.
Enter the Sandblaster. This is a helicopter avionics system commissioned by DARPA that integrates advanced flight controls, a "see-through" sensor, synthetic vision and data fusion to allow the pilots to fly safely in a zero-visibility, howling haboob, according to Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.
Using the Sikorsky system, the pilot has only to press a button to bring the chopper from en-route flight to a low, non-drift hover over a pre-programmed landing point, according to the company headquartered in Stratford, Conn.
"There are two issues," said Benjamin Weiser a senior director in charge of helicopter upgrades at Elbit Systems, which produces a competing system. "Helicopters come into unmarked territory at night with hostile fire and need to land, load or drop. First, they must verify that the landing zone doesn't have obstacles and that the slope is good for landing.
"The biggest problem, though, is that they can't see lateral drift because of the dust, which can cause them to tip over and cause casualties," Weiser told Defense News.
Sikorsky collaborated with Sierra Nevada Corp. and Honeywell International to produce a prototype. Sierra Nevada supplied the three-dimensional radar that penetrates the sand and dust and detects terrain and objects within the landing zone, while Honeywell's Sensor-driven Localized External Evidential Knowledge (SLEEK) and Synthetic Vision System displays the radar data and a three-dimensional view of the LZ and surroundings on a cockpit screen.
The Elbit system, called solution Dust-Off, is based on its wire-strike avoidance system. As with Sandblaster, it's an amalgamation of other products. They include the ANVIS/HUD-24T with LOS tracker and a Surveillance Warning Obstacle Ranging and Display (SWORD) laser radar. (PDF)
After only an only few hours of familiarization with the prototype, pilots were able to successfully execute landing approaches during recent tests conducted at the Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., according to Sikorsky.
(Credit:
GPS Daily)
If the question "Where am I?" is a recurring issue for you, Ricoh has added a feature to its GPS-ready digital camera that you may want to check out.
The Ricoh 500SE GPS camera now includes something called an SE-3 GPS module, a three-axis compass developed by Honeywell that nails down the position and direction (azimuth), then displays it on the camera's LCD.
The data, in the form of point coordinates, is embedded into an image as it is captured.
This gives the user a 3D "cones-of-view" perspective, indicating the direction the camera was facing. It comes ready to use with mapping applications such as Google Earth and ESRI's ArcGIS (PDF.)
A laser rangefinder connected to the camera via Bluetooth also enables the user to enter accurate distances.
(Credit:
Ricoh)
"Prior to the availability of the SE-3 module, images from the 500SE were simply points on a map with no indication of the direction the camera was facing," Ricoh manager Jeff Lengyel told GPS Daily. "Now we can provide an accurate visual reference of an image's azimuth, as well as the field-of-view the camera could see from that position."
Industries ranging from the military and disaster response to forestry and architecture currently use these features for both aerial and ground-based photography. Sounds like a must-have for any CSI unit.
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