Aviation services company Jeppesen has signed a three-year co-operative agreement with NASA to develop synthetic vision databases for a NASA programme which is designed to reduce aviation accidents due to hazardous weather, difficult terrain and spatial disorientation.
A synthetic vision solution combines navigation information from sources such as global positioning system and inertial navigation system; with a synthetic vision database which includes terrain, obstacles, noise abatement areas and flight planning; and a multi-function high-resolution display.
Jeppesen will be responsible for creating synthetic vision databases for mountainous locations in the USA and South America that have challenging conditions for aircraft operators. The databases will be used by the NASA synthetic vision research teams and used for future multi-function displays. Synthetic vision will allow "the full value of gate-to-gate and free flight to be possible as those require full 4D navigation - 3D plus precise time over waypoints - for traffic separation, which synthetic vision technology can support", says Dejan Damjanovic, Jeppesen's director of flight deck applications.
Source: Flight International
