SA PHOTONICS, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A18-089

Description

Army helicopter pilots have a very challenging job that requires a high level of situational awareness.Although many fighter jet HMDs (F-35 JSF, JHMCS) use off the visor optics, helicopter HMDs almost always use an optical system that puts some part of the optics in front of the pilots eyes, like in the Apache IHADSS HMD.For this system, much of the downlook on the right side of the helicopter is blocked from vision, which is critical for landing.Even the next-generation CHMD system has a large peripheral obscuration that blocks critical information from the pilots field of vision.A visor projected HMD solves the problems of obscuration and can be much lighter than an HMD with a combiner.There are numerous visor projected HMDs on the market, but they are extremely expensive.What is necessary is a low-cost, visor projected display for helicopter pilotage.Using our background in HMD design and our knowledge of advanced optics, SA Photonics is pleased to propose our Visor Projected Retrofittable (ViPR) HMD for helicopter pilotage.This system is a low-cost, state of the art design with electronics that allow it to be retrofit into helicopters both with and without a HUD/HMD symbol generator.