INNOVATIVE DISPLAY CONCEPTS FOR FIELD OF VIEW EXPANSION IN AIR COMBAT SIMULATORS

RECENT ACQUISITIONS OF A DOMED SIMULATION WITH BACKGROUND, LASER AND HIGH RESOLUTION TARGET DISPLAYS AND GRAPHICS WORKSTATIONS FOR MANNED ADVERSARIES BY AFWAL/FIGD ARE AIMED AT INCREASING THEIR CAPABILITY TO EVALUATE AND REFINE DESIGN REQUIREMENTS FOR TACTICAL AIRCRAFT. THE CURRENT EMPHASIS FOR THIS EQUIPMENT IS BEYOND-VISUAL-RANGE (BVR) COMBAT TO SUPPORT THE INTEGRATED COCKPIT AVIONICS FOR AIR SUPERIORITY (ICAAS) PROGRAM. THE MANNED ADVERSARY COCKPITS WILL ALLOW EVALUATIONSTO CONSIDER THE EFFECTS OF MULTIPLE TARGETS IN A BVR ENVIRONMENT. FURTHER STUDIES WILL NEED TO ADDRESS THE TRANSITION FROM BVR TO WITHIN-VISUAL-RANGE (WVR) COMBAT AND THE TRUE M ON N CLOSE-IN COMBAT OF A LARGE SCALE AIR BATTLE. THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS SBIR PHASE I EFFORT IS TO DEVELOP AN ENHANCED FIELD-OF-VIEW (FOV) VISUAL DISPLAY CAPABLE OF CONDUCTING CREDIBLE CLOSE-IN COMBAT FROM A SINGLE CRT SCREEN. THREE SEPARATE AND UNIQUE FOV EXPANSION TECHNIQUES WILL BE EVALUATED AND A RECOMMENDED DISPLAY CONCEPT IDENTIFIED. THIS SBIR I EFFORT WILL LEAD TO DISPLAYS FOR LOW COST, MANNED, INTERACTIVE CREW STATIONS TO SUPPLEMENT EXISTING AND NEW AFWAL/FIGD SIMULATIONS WITH CREDIBLE MULTIPLE PARTICIPANTS. THESE LOW COST, INTERACTIVE, CREW STATIONS WOULD ALLOW TRUE M OR N AIR BATTLE SIMULATIONS FROM BVR TO WVR CLOSE-IN MANEUVERING TO PROPERLY EVALUATE NEW TECHNOLOGY CONCEPTS AT AN AFFORDABLE COST.