NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Flight test of a low-altitude helicopter guidance system with obstacle avoidance capabilityMilitary aircraft regularly conduct missions that include low-atltitude, near-terrain flight in order to increase covertness and payload effectiveness. Civilian applications include airborne fire fighting, police surveillance, search and rescue, and helicopter emergency medical service. Several fixed-wing aircraft now employ terrain elevation maps and forward-pointed radars to achieve automated terrain following or terrain avoidance flight. Similar systems specialized to helicopters and their flight regime have not received as much attention. A helicopter guidance system relying on digitized terrain elevation maps has been developed that employs airborne navigation, mission requirements, aircraft performance limits, and radar altimeter returns to generate a valley-seeking, low-altitude trajectory between waypoints. The guidance trajectory is symbolically presented to the pilot on a helmet mounted display. This system has been flight tested to 150 ft (45.7 m) above ground level altitude at 80 kts, and is primarily limited by the ability of the pilot to perform manual detection and avoidance of unmapped hazards. In this study, a wide field of view laser radar sensor has been incorporated into this guidance system to assist the pilot in obstacle detection and avoidance, while expanding the system's operational flight envelope. The results from early flight tests of this system are presented. Low-altitude missions to 100 ft (30.5 m) altitude at 80n kts in the presence of unmapped natural and man-made obstacles were demonstrated while the pilot maintained situational awareness and tracking of the guidance trajectory. Further reductions in altitude are expected with continued flight testing.
Document ID
19950026069
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Zelenka, Richard E.
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Clark, Raymond F.
(Army Command/Control and Systems Integration Directorate Fort Monmouth, NJ., United States)
Branigan, Robert G.
(Army Night Vision Lab. Fort Belvoir, VA., United States)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1995
Publication Information
Publication: AGARD, Low-Level and Nap-of-the-Earth (NOE) Night Operations
Subject Category
Aircraft Communications And Navigation
Accession Number
95N32490
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Document Inquiry

Available Downloads

There are no available downloads for this record.
No Preview Available