New Weather Depiction Technology for Night Vision Goggle (NVG) Training

The objective of this SBIR program is to “Develop innovative technology to depict various weather/atmospheric conditions to aircrew undergoing Night Imaging and Threat Evaluation (NITE) training in conjunction with the 10’ by 10’ static Night Vision Terrain Board (NVTB).” To meet this goal, Ontar has designed a software/hardware Night Vision Goggle–Weather Depiction Technology (NVG– WDT) system which uses a unique combination of hardware and software to depict a wide range of radiometrically accurate weather effects and atmospheric obscurations simultaneously to multiple NITE trainees. A weather simulation program is used to develop meteorological conditions matching terrain board topography and a wide variety of weather conditions which can be selected for various geographical locations, climates and seasonal variations. An atmospheric absorption and radiative transfer model is then used to convert the output of the weather simulation, combined with additional effects due to other natural or manmade obscurations, into transmission and radiation images in the bandpass of the NVG. The images are then injected into a fixed or goggle-mounted HUD and presented to the trainee. A head tracker will be used to vary the injected scene based upon the trainee’s location and line of sight relative to the terrain board scene.