Orion - Flight Test Replay System

There exists a need for analysts to correlate terrain topology with a Unit Under Test (UUT) during block upgrades as part of the Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) of the avionics suite, as radar terrain data cannot be accurately evaluated using currently available tools. Ideally, this tool would be able to incorporate topology with sensor data captured from the UUT, help confirm software/hardware performance and accuracy, and accurately evaluate radar returns. The end state is to “provide for more detailed analysis of aircraft dynamics as they relate to the environment allowing for analysis of the airframe as it moves through the test envelope.” Chesapeake Technology International’s (CTI) Orion Flight Test Playback Tool will be able to visualize the UUT and perceived topology over time, enabling an analyst to compare radar return data with known topology, all within a modern, state-of-the-art, high-performance visualization environment.Flight Test Playback Tool.  Orion will initially focus on radar terrain data, which will require an understanding of the radar’s position and orientation to process the terrain results correctly. Algorithms exist for determining the UUT’s location from radar terrain signals, which can be implemented and leveraged if required . Experience suggests most datasets present several common challenges, including artifacts in the collection data, missing data over the collection area, and often limited fields of view (presenting only a partial picture of the topology). Clever processing and rendering approaches, such as leveraging GPU based technologies such as CUDA or OpenCL as well as building high performance render artifacts (leveraging shaders for performance) will enable the presentation of millions of concurrent datapoints while maintaining interactive frame rates (e.g., 20+ frames per second) on commodity hardware.  Orion will have the ability to convey a presentation of the radar terrain returns to support the analyst's use case of artifact identification. However, what makes Orion novel and unique will be the ability to present a human-perceived topology implied by the raw data through terrain synthesis.