![]() ![]() This means door gunners or other personnel would have the same augmented vision, provide even greater situational awareness for the crew and their passengers, as a whole. ![]() The hope is that a single system could provide enough processing power to pump feeds into up to six helmets on a single helicopter or tilt-rotor. Lockheed Martin has also designed the PDAS to readily accept upgrades to add more features in the future, too. The same goes for trying to land or insert personnel into very tight spots. These operations can often occur in areas where there is limited room to maneuver, requiring the entire crew to be constantly aware of their position. This could also help during missions that require helicopters and other rotorcraft to hold a steady hover for a protracted period of time, while also winching personnel or other cargo up and down, such as combat search and rescue or disaster relief. These risks only go up after dark or when various visual obscurants are present, all of which can cause sudden and dangerous losses of situational awareness. At low altitudes and high speeds, helicopters and other rotorcraft as particularly vulnerable to a host of general environmental hazards, including power lines. PDAS’ situational awareness is also important just for basic navigation, especially at night and when flying low-level nap-of-the-earth flight profiles. It also offers the possibility that the crew may be able to more readily spot and avoid hazards altogether and could make formation flying safer. This means they can more rapidly identify targets or threats, including things such as incoming missiles. With this system, crew members can also look in different directions independently at once. In contrast, PDAS gives pilots the ability to shift attention from one area of interest to another without having to slew a sensor turret, or physically move the aircraft into a more optimal position, at all. ![]() Even advanced systems coupled with helmet-mounted displays, such as t Apache's TADS/NVDS, are still uni-directional, even though they do allow the crew to rapidly shift focus from a single area to another. At night, aviators also use night vision goggles to provide additional situational awareness, but these also typically have a relatively narrow field of view. However, the majority of these systems generally offer a limited “soda straw” view in only one direction at a time. The result is that pilots can “see” in any direction, including what would otherwise be blind spots, such as through the floor or straight to the rear of the aircraft. ![]() A central processing system “stitches together” these feeds and then pump them into helmet-mounted displays for the pilot and co-pilot, as well as fixed screens in the cockpit. The PDAS configuration on the V-280 consists of six infrared cameras positioned around the aircraft. “With its embedded, multi-functional sensors, PDAS is the ideal foundation for an integrated survivability suite that will enable Army aircrews to own any environment and universally detect and defeat incoming threats.” “Conducting PDAS flight tests on the V-280 is an exciting first step toward delivering a level of situational awareness unavailable on today's Army rotorcraft,” Rita Flaherty, the Strategy and Business Development Vice President at Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control division, said in a press release. The company has previously tested it on board a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, as well. Lockheed Martin says it signed a deal with Bell in 2013 to test the system on their tilt-rotor and began working on it actively in 2014. 15, 2019, the Maryland headquartered defense contractor revealed that it had conducted the PDAS tests on the prototype V-280 in a series of flights from its facilities in Fort Worth, Texas the month before. The modular technology could have applications far beyond tilt-rotors and other rotorcraft, including fixed-wing aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles, and might find uses in the commercial sector, too. This is a game-changing capability that could improve their ability to avoid threats, navigate more safely, even at night and in other poor visibility conditions, and simply have better situational awareness overall during flight. This system uses multiple cameras to offer pilots a 360-degree view around their aircraft, similar to the Distributed Aperture System on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Lockheed Martin has flown its new Pilotage Distributed Aperture Sensor, or PDAS, on Bell’s V-280 Valor tilt-rotor aircraft for the first time. ![]()
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