Honeywell (Hall A, Stand 712) is working on a synthetic vision system (SVS) that would allow pilots to fly “blind” along a computer-generated pathway in the sky.
Details of the system are sketchy at the moment, but the likelihood is that the company will unveil the system aboard a demonstrator at the Farnborough show in July.
Industry sources say that Honeywell already has a launch customer lined up.
Honeywell is no stranger to the core technologies that might be used in such a system. Kollsman and Honeywell became the first to receive US Federal Aviation Administration certification for an Enhanced Vision System (EVS) in 2001 on the Gulfstream GV.
While EVS uses infra-red sensors to help see through fog and cloud, synthetic vision needs other sensors plus a virtual reality, computer-generated world to work.
The elements need for a successful system are mostly there. Jeppesen recently announced plans to release a worldwide terrain database that would meet aviation quality requirements for use in future synthetic vision systems.
The other major player in the SVS market has been Rockwell Collins.
NASA, the US Air Force and a team led by Rockwell Collins recently wound up a research project that had demonstrated “virtual VMC” operations were possible by combining synthetic and enhanced vision. The SE-Vision programme included two phases of commercial and military flight tests involving a Gulfstream V and the US Federal Aviation Administration’s Boeing 727 testbed.
Rockwell Collins said that its tests showed that such as system was feasible. It said then that it only needed “manufacturers, and the market to determine when the concept woud become reality”.
Source: Flight Daily News