Wed, Jan 20, 2010
Awards InterSense An Extended SBIR Contract To Test Head-Worn
Tracking System For Pilots
NASA has awarded additional funding to InterSense Inc. to
continue development and testing of an inertial-optical head
tracking system for commercial pilots, the company said Monday.
This next round of funding will build off previous SBIR contracts
awarded to InterSense for the development of a miniaturized
inertial-optical tracker prototype integrated into a Head-Worn
Display (HWD) for airline and business jet pilots. In this next
phase, InterSense will participate in the testing and analysis of
the system during flight tests in order to assess its functionality
and performance.
Based on the Company's hybrid inertial-optical motion tracking
technology, the commercial cockpit vision system integrates
real-time position and viewing orientation of the pilot with a HWD
in place of the current standard, fix-mounted Heads-Up Display
(HUD) technology. This new approach enables the pilot to see
critical, spatially-integrated Synthetic and Enhanced Vision
Systems information without having to look down into the cockpit or
even straight ahead.
Research from NASA's Aviation Safety Program reveals that HWD
technology helps enable safe advanced applications for the Next
Generation Air Transportation System, the Federal Aviation
Administration's movement to overhaul the entire U.S. air
transportation system. Specifically, HWD systems enhance
visualization of spatially-integrated flight information while
simplifying installation, reducing operating costs by reducing
weight and fuel consumption, and overcoming space constraints in
smaller cockpits. By coupling miniature head-worn displays with
head-motion tracking, the InterSense system will provide the pilot
with visually-coupled data that can pinpoint threat alerts,
"highlight" assigned taxiways and airways, reduce cockpit workload
and increase overall situational awareness.
"Our continued work with NASA is a testament to InterSense's
ability to deliver next-generation, real-time motion sensing
technology enabling cockpit innovations to improve safety for
airline, corporate and charter pilots," said T.C. Browne, CEO of
InterSense. "Our goal is to bring the spatially-integrated
Head-Worn Display concept of military aviation to pilots in
commercial flight environments, an achievement we hope eventually
translates to industry-wide adoption of more effective cockpit
vision systems."
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