Light in flight: Optical applications in civilian aviation

摘要

Information of the applications of lasers, fiber optics, and related technologies in civil aviation, is provided. Researchers in the flight deck interface technologies group at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., US, are developing head-up display (HUD) that projects the image of one or more cockpit display screens onto a transparent surface, so that the information from the screen is overlaid on the view the pilot sees through the aircraft windshield. The NASA Langley group has developed a three-core fiber-optic sensor that can be used as part of a vehicular or structural health monitoring system. A Swiss team called the Solar Impulse Project is building a solar-powered fixed-wing plane that would circumnavigate the globe with a pilot, possibly as early as 2013. Thermal imaging is one method used for aircraft inspection as well as for quantitative characterization of metallic and composite materials.