ALLFlight: Multi-sensor data fusion for helicopter operations

The objective of the project ALLFlight (Assisted Low Level Flight and Landing on Unprepared Landing Sites) is to demonstrate and evaluate the characteristics of different sensors for helicopter operations within degraded visual environments, such as brownout or whiteout. The sensor suite, which is mounted onto DLR’s research helicopter EC135 consists of standard color or black and white TV cameras, an un-cooled thermal infrared camera (EVS-1000, Max-Viz, USA), an optical radar scanner (HELLAS-W, EADS, Germany) and a millimeter wave radar system (AI-130, ICx Radar Systems, Canada). Data processing is designed and realized by a sophisticated, high performance sensor co-computer (SCC) cluster architecture, which is installed into the helicopter’s experimental electronic cargo bay. This paper describes applied methods and the software architecture in terms of real time data acquisition, recording, time stamping and sensor data fusion. First concepts for a pilot HMI are presented as well