MIDE TECHNOLOGY CORP — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: SB082-025

Description

A pilots ability to maintain situational awareness during flight is critical to both mission success and crew and passenger safety. Loss of spatial orientation and overall situational awareness is a critical challenge for the DOD. This is especially the case for helicopter pilotage during tactical maneuvers in stressful conditions such as Degraded Visual Environments (DVE) scenarios. Accidents due to impaired situational awareness (including DVE) account for a large percentage of battlefield helicopter accidents. These accidents come at great cost to the Army; equipment is lost, and service members lives are lost. One key component being developed to mitigate DVE accidents is the Tactile Situation Awareness System (TSASUSAARL), which uses vibrational cues to signal warnings and flight information to the pilot in an intuitive method. Building off a tactile system developed for Land Soldier cueing (Darpa/Army grants), Mide offers to create a High Definition TSAS wearable display featuring smart piezo tactile actuators tactors embedded in low profile shirts/and or pilot vests. Mids low profile and lightweight smart piezo tactors will reduce the Size Weight and Power (SWAP) of the current TSAS implementation; improve tactile cueing capability, and lead to an effective and fieldable system for DVE mitigation and piloting