Visual Display for the Mitigation of Helicopter and Tiltrotor Brownout Spatial Disorientation

As a response to Navy’s STTR N22A-T001 topic, Alphacore has performed feasibility study defining potential methodologies and engineering designs for a Head-up Display (HUD) - based visual display system that can help prevent loss of spatial awareness during Degraded Visual Environment (DVE) encountered with brownout conditions. Brownout is an induced type of DVE caused when rotor downwash lifts dust, sand and other obscurants into the aircraft’s vortex and surrounding environment thereby reducing visibility with the resultant loss of situational awareness to varying degrees. Brownout primarily affects three of the phases of flight: hovering, landing, and takeoff.  The brownout condition is of particular concern with %65 non-hostile fatalities occurring from brownout hover and low speed flight according to Joint Air Power Competence Centre report. Brownout has become a more prevalent research topic than in the past since strengthening pilot awareness through improved flight displays for low-speed maneuvering has now become a top priority for all military forces using helicopter support. In order to address this need, Alphacore team has investigated (i) how pilots combat spatial disorientation (SD) and reduce the risk of errors by utilizing a variety of spatial strategies to maintain their orientation and awareness of the aircraft's position and movements and (ii) what has been missing in current visual display designs. Visual augmentation methods for rotorcraft pilots using a see-through head-mounted display have the potential to assist the pilot and to increase flight safety in severely DVE. In Phase I, Alphacore team has proposed, built and evaluated a head-up display (HUD) based prototype system that carries a unique advantage in that it can help mitigation of brownout not only through novel symbology work specific to brownout conditions but also new hardware adaptations to support helicopter and tiltrotor platforms. Following Phase I work, Alphacore will next refine, manufacture, build, integrate demonstrate and finally validate the brownout mitigation HUD prototype system first in laboratory, then in non-motion and/or a motion-based flight simulator (of customer choice) and flight environment already in Phase II. Alphacore has put together a strong interdisciplinary team with expertise ranging from human to machine interface, spatial disorientation, helicopter piloting, HUD visual display system design and engineering, image science, optomechanical design, integration and product design development know-how and is well positioned to carry out this innovative and state- of-the-art work.