Brownout Radar Beamforming Using Electronically Reconfigurable Apertures

The accident rate of helicopters immersed in a dust cloud represents a major contributor to loss of personnel and material in operations in a desert environment. Although measures such as approach profile changes and pilot training implemented to date have reduced this accident rate, it remains unacceptably high. Landing systems currently under development are designed to address this problem, but projected costs of these systems suggest fleet wide implementation is improbable. An affordable aid to the pilot promising a significant reduction in the brownout accident rate is needed. The envisioned system is an ‘electronic bumper’ in the form of an active radar system with sufficient resolution to detect obstacles in the landing area. The focus of this program is the development of low-cost rapid scan aperture technology that will enable the electronic bumper system to meet performance and cost goals.