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Ascension’s DC magnetic and next-generation optical head trackers optimize the effectiveness of helmet-mounted display systems in combat vehicles – air and ground. By accurately measuring a pilot’s line-of-sight (LOS) angles, they permit precision guidance of weapons, enable intra-cockpit cueing, and maximize situational awareness. In short, pilots can aim weapons, acquire mission-critical information and receive self-protection prompts simply by looking at a target through their visor.
Flight worthy models of Ascension’s DC magnetic tracker are available from Ascension’s licensee for DC technology, BAE Systems Avionics, Rochester, UK. BAE is the largest avionics company in Europe and the UK’s foremost supplier of electronic systems for military and civilian air platforms.
In the last decade, BAE has developed a family of helmet-mounted displays for fast jet and rotary aircraft applications. DC magnetic tracking, which greatly simplifies installation mapping compared to earlier AC magnetic trackers, is used for target acquisition and cueing in head-mounted displays system. Current programs include the German UH-Tiger helicopter and the AH-1Z helicopter upgrade for the US Marine Corps.
For more information about DC tracking in tactical aircraft, visit BAE (www.baesystems.com) or reach Ascension for direct contact points.
In response to DOD requirements for advanced tracker technology integrated with new helmet-display concepts, Ascension has developed phasorBIRD™ -- a breakthrough innovation in optical head tracking. phasorBIRD is a six degrees-of-freedom tracker designed to meet stringent accuracy and measurement rates ( 0.1°/+700Hz ) while being compatible with night-vision systems and bright sunlight. It is also immune to cockpit and helmet scatterers of magnetic/electric field energy.
phasorBIRD technology overcomes performance, mounting, and human-factors limitations found in lens-based cameras employing bulky, obstructive emitters. It also eliminates the requirement for elaborate alignment and mapping hardware with its accompanying high logistical costs.
Click here to read a SPIE paper describing the development and
testing of phasorBIRD - Ascension's next generation helmet tracker.
Development of a ruggedized flight worthy model of phasorBIRD intergated with advanced new helmet-mounted display is presently in progress under the direction of the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH. A test plan is presently being developed for 2009 flights in an F-16 testbed aircraft.
For more information about how phasorBIRD can solve your future cockpit tracking requirements contact Jack Scully at:
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