Proceedings of Two Day Workshop on Enhanced and Synthetic Vision for Transport Aircraft

The regional transport aircraft (RTA-70) proposed to be developed at NAL is expected to have the capability of reliable and safe operation from airports with minimal infrastructure and instrumentation facility under all-weather conditions. Enhanced and Synthetic Vision (ESV) technology aided by satellite navigation has the potential to meet this requirement. A two day workshop on ‘Enhanced and Synthetic Vision for Transport Aircraft’ was organized by the Multi Sensor Data Fusion group, Flight Mechanics and Control Division with the objective of examining the state of art and identifying gaps in technology/knowledge base in this area and chalk out a plan of action for ESV development at NAL.. The inaugural session included addresses by Dr. A R Upadhya, Director, NAL, Dr. Kota Harinarayana, Raja Ramanna Fellow, NAL and Dr. S.V. Kibe, Programme Director, SATNAV,ISRO. The Two day workshop had fourteen invited lectures delivered by scientists and technologists from India and abroad who shared their work experience in related technology areas and thoughts on its use for ESV development. There were six thematic sessions. In the first session, Dr. Jharna Majumdar, Professor, East Point College of Engineering, Bangalore with her vast experience in development of “Image exploitation system for unmanned aerial vehicle”, brought out the research areas in image processing that need to be addressed for ESV and some aspects of video geo registration. Prof. B.N. Chatterji, IIT Kharagpur covered issues related to content based image retreival. In the second session on “Visual Cues for pilots/Human Machine Interface Sqn Ldr. J. Sreeram, ASTE, Bangalore gave an insight into the flight test perspective on display concepts for synthetic vision followed by Cdr. Renganathan, Coral Technologies, Bangalore who gave an overview of computer graphics for modern cockpits and cockpit procedure trainers. This was followed by presentation of the activities at FMCD in the areas of synthetic vision and image fusion. On 26th April, Dr. Ronald Kruk, Chief Scientist, CAE, Canada in his very lucid and informative presentation brought out the role of laboratory, simulator and flight test components in ESV development, as part of the third session. Dr. Dinesh Ramegowda, Honeywell Technology Solutions, Bangalore covered the multi spectral enhanced vision system development at Honeywell. The fourth session included two lectures on issues and solutions for image fusion by Dr. S.C. Jain, DEAL Dehradun and Dr. Subrata Rakshit, CAIR, Bangalore. In the fifth session on “Sensor Technologies”, Dr. S.S. Negi, IRDE, Dehradun detailed the latest developments in infrared sensor technology while Dr. Nilesh M. Desai of ISAC, ISRO, Ahmedabad covered the microwave remote sensing and synthetic aperture radar. Dr. PP Mohanlal, VSSC, Trivandrum discussed the GPS aided INS for space capsule recovery experiments and launch vehicle systems. The workshop concluded with a 90 minute brain storming panel discussion by the panel members consisting of eminent scientists and transport aircraft pilots. Issues related to system requirement, sensors, pilot interface and system certification were discussed. The workshop provided a platform for the experts from various organizations to come together to arrive at a road-map for ESV development for RTA. This Special Publication gives the abstracts of the presentations at the workshop including the presentation material. It also includes the Summary of the panel discussions which highlights future directions and research needs.