Multispectral uncooled infrared enhanced-vision system for flight test

The 1997 Final Report of the 'White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security' challenged industrial and government concerns to reduce aviation accident rates by a factor of five within 10 years. In the report, the commission encourages NASA, FAA and others 'to expand their cooperative efforts in aviation safety research and development'. As a result of this publication, NASA has since undertaken a number of initiatives aimed at meeting the stated goal. Among these, the NASA Aviation Safety Program was initiated to encourage and assist in the development of technologies for the improvement of aviation safety. Among the technologies being considered are certain sensor technologies that may enable commercial and general aviation pilots to 'see to land' at night or in poor visibility conditions. Infrared sensors have potential applicability in this field, and this paper describes a system, based on such sensors, that is being deployed on the NASA Langley Research Center B757 ARIES research aircraft. The system includes two infrared sensors operating in different spectral bands, and a visible-band color CCD camera for documentation purposes. The sensors are mounted in an aerodynamic package in a forward position on the underside of the aircraft. Support equipment in the aircraft cabin collects and processes all relevant sensor data. Display of sensor images is achieved in real time on the aircraft's Head Up Display (HUD), or other display devices.© (2001) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.