ALLFlight - Enhanced Vision Sensor Suite for Helicopter Applications

摘要

Since 2008 the DLR project ALLFlight (Assisted Low Level Flight and Landing on Unprepared Landing Sites) is dealingrnwith the integration of a large scale EV sensor suite onto DLR’s research helicopter EC-135. The main objective of thisrnproject is to demonstrate and evaluate the characteristics of different sensors for helicopter operation within degraded visualrnenvironments, such as brownout or whiteout. The sensor suite consists of a standard color TV camera and an un-cooledrnthermal infrared camera (EVS-1000, Max-Viz, USA). Additional, two different ranging sensors are part of this sensor suite:rnan optical radar scanner (HELLAS-W, EADS, Germany) and a mmW radar system (AI-130, Icx Radar Systems, Canada).rnBoth radar systems are equipped with specialized software for experimental modes, such as terrain mapping and groundrnscanning. To be able to process and display the huge incoming flood of data from these sensors, a compact high performancernso-called sensor co-computer system (SCC) has been designed and realized, which can easily be installed into thernhelicopter’s experimental electronic cargo bay. A sophisticated, high performance, distributed data acquisition, recording,rnprocessing, and fusion software architecture has been developed and implemented during the first project years. Flight trialsrnare planned to be conducted in 2010.