Real-Time Millimeter-Wave Holography for Helicopter Pilotage and Hazard Avoidance

Degraded visual environment (DVE) presents a challenge for helicopter pilotage, particularly in close proximity to potential hazards such as vegetation, poles, wires, buildings, vehicles, personnel, equipment, nearby terrain, other aircraft, or ship superstructures. To safely negotiate these hazards, the aircrew must maintain a continuous awareness of the environment that can include both static and moving obstacles. In the absence of direct visual cues in DVE, the crew must rely on other means to determine the location and movement of these hazards. Here, we propose the use of active millimeter-wave (mmW) imaging to provide information about the helicopter surroundings in full 3D. The approach relies on the movement of the main rotor for the scanning, and on a distributed mmW receiver concept with optical up-conversion and processing for detection. The captured signal contains all information necessary to determine the position and movement of objects in the vicinity of the helicopter as well as the state of the rotor. In addition, high-gain transmission and reception for communication is afforded by the large effective aperture. The goal of this Phase I SBIR is to establish the viability of the approach and to identify optimum system architectures.