Perfect Visibility With Synthetic Vision

By Roland Piquepaille

Four months ago, in "NASA Helps Clearing the Fog," I was commenting on NASA's Synthetic Vision program which goal is to reduce airplane accidents by 80 percent. This week, in "Synthetic Vision is no fake," Washington Technology brings us more details about the technologies used by this program. Synthetic Vision integrates GPS, a high-resolution display, detailed terrain databases and an integrity monitor that ensures the land below corresponds to the synthetic view. The pilot sees the terrain, the potential obstacles, his approach and the runway. NASA says these technologies could also be used for air traffic control or military applications. Read more...

Imagine you are a pilot: this is what you'll see.

	Instead of an airplane's traditional horizon display, Synthetic Vision delivers a detailed view of the terrain and any approaching obstacles. The system also has an integrity monitor (inset) that ensures the land below corresponds to the synthetic view. (Credit: NASA).
	And here is another picture of what you could see if you were a pilot using Synthetic Vision (Credit: NASA). This picture comes from the NASA's Aviation Safety Program. You also can see an impressive short movie (Direct link; Caution: 40 MB).

Here are the opening paragraphs of the Washington Technology article.

NASA and its industry partners have developed technology called Synthetic Vision that could nearly eliminate those accidents, said Dan Baize, NASA's project manager for the effort.

Inspired by the Federal Aviation Administration's goal of reducing fatal accidents by 80 percent, Synthetic Vision marries several technologies to provide pilots with perfect visibility regardless of the weather or time of day.

So what are the technologies used and how does the full system work?

Synthetic Vision combines a high-resolution display, databases of terrain and Global Positioning System technology to show pilots exactly where they are and how the plane is oriented. The system also has an integrity-monitoring system that ensures that the information Synthetic Vision is displaying corresponds to where the plane actually is.

Synthetic Vision shows the terrain, obstacles, the approach path and runways in a display that looks something like a video game. Databases give pilots photorealistic displays -- even including landmarks such as shopping malls and office buildings -- but the first-generation projects likely will have more generic displays, Baize said.

And when will we see airplane applications?

Virtually all avionics companies are preparing to launch Synthetic Vision products, Baize said. The first generation of synthetic vision is available from Chelton Flight Systems of Boise, Idaho. Chelton is part of Cobham plc of Wimborne, England.

The business jet industry likely will be an early adopter of Synthetic Vision, and others will follow, said Tim Etherington, a systems engineer with Rockwell Collins Inc., one of NASA's industry partners on the project.

What other applications will use these technologies?

Air traffic control is a possibility," Baize said. "Controllers are now limited by the visibility available to them and the line of sight they have. A synthetic tower could be created where the proper traffic information would be viewable to them at all times."

Synthetic Vision has gone through low-level flight tests on military planes and helicopters, Etherington said. It could be used for military command and control applications too, he said.

My conclusion is identical to the one from four months ago: let's hope this technology can be deployed as soon as possible on commercial flights.

Sources: Doug Beizer, Washington Technology, December 13, 2004; and various other websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Aerospace
  
• NASA
  
• Transportation
  
• Vision