This paper describes results from an ongoing research and development effort to evaluate the potential for airborne long-range infrared target detection (aka, infrared search and track (IRST)) to meet critical requirements for small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) airborne detect and avoid (DAA). Established sensors used for manned-aircraft airborne DAA are generally heavy, expensive, active, high-power devices that are difficult to scale to the size-weight-and-power/cost (SWaP/C) constraints of sUAS. Current low-SWaP sensors developed for sUAS DAA are not meeting the Well Clear (Safe Separation) detection range and coverage requirements to avoid non-cooperative aircraft. In this work, a low-SWaP staring IRST airborne DAA sensor payload system is being developed and tested to evaluate system performance against long range small airborne threats (e.g., sUAS, birds) and to guide system design studies. This paper presents results and analyses from a recent initial data collection using low-SWaP LWIR microbolometers suitable for Group 1-2 sUAS DAA applications against Group 1-2 sUAS targets. The modeling and results to date suggest that low-SWaP IR sensors such as those evaluated in this paper can provide the necessary detection range to support Group 1-2 sUAS DAA operations. Wide area coverage requirements, emerging from NASA and FAA UAS DAA studies, can be met through multiple cameras with decreasing angular resolution as they rotate aft to minimize overall system SWaP. Because of the limited SWaP capacity of sUAS, an IRST DAA system without extensive mechanical stabilization is desired. Analysis of UAS non-stabilized IR sensor vibration data found that the effects of motion blur on range performance were not significant and could be largely mitigated through deconvolution filters. The UAS sensor vibration introduced excessive scene clutter that interfered with effective UAS target tracking. The clutter was due to a time-scale conflict between the platform vibration energy and the baseline detector algorithms. Algorithms are being developed and tested to mitigate these effects and extend the baseline approach. Additional data reduction and analysis are planned to corroborate and extend these findings.
Stenosis of the upper airway affects approximately 1 in 200,000 adults per year1 , and occurs in neonates as well2 . Its treatment is often dictated by institutional factors and clinicians’ experience or preferences 3 . Objective and quantitative methods of evaluating treatment options hold the potential to improve care in stenosis patients. Virtual surgical planning software tools are critically important for this. The Virtual Pediatric Airway Workbench (VPAW) is a software platform designed and evaluated for upper airway stenosis treatment planning. It incorporates CFD simulation and geometric authoring with objective metrics from both that help in informed evaluation and planning. However, this planner currently lacks physiological information which could impact the surgical planning outcomes. In this work, we integrated a lumped parameter, model based human physiological engine called BioGears with VPAW. We demonstrated the use of physiology informed virtual surgical planning platform for patient-specific stenosis treatment planning. The preliminary results show that incorporating patient-specific physiology in the pretreatment plan would play important role in patient-specific surgical trainers and planners in airway surgery and other types of surgery that are significantly impacted by physiological conditions during surgery.
David Roberts, Alberico Menozzi, James Cook, Todd Sherrill, Stephen Snarski, Pat Russler, Brian Clipp, Robert Karl, Eric Wenger, Matthew Bennett, Jennifer Mauger, William Church, Herman Towles, Stephen MacCabe, Jeffrey Webb, Jasper Lupo, Jan-Michael Frahm, Enrique Dunn, Christopher Leslie, Greg Welch
This paper describes performance evaluation of a wearable augmented reality system for natural outdoor environments.
Applied Research Associates (ARA), as prime integrator on the DARPA ULTRA-Vis (Urban Leader Tactical,
Response, Awareness, and Visualization) program, is developing a soldier-worn system to provide intuitive ‘heads-up’
visualization of tactically-relevant geo-registered icons. Our system combines a novel pose estimation capability, a
helmet-mounted see-through display, and a wearable processing unit to accurately overlay geo-registered iconography
(e.g., navigation waypoints, sensor points of interest, blue forces, aircraft) on the soldier’s view of reality. We achieve
accurate pose estimation through fusion of inertial, magnetic, GPS, terrain data, and computer-vision inputs. We
leverage a helmet-mounted camera and custom computer vision algorithms to provide terrain-based measurements of
absolute orientation (i.e., orientation of the helmet with respect to the earth). These orientation measurements, which
leverage mountainous terrain horizon geometry and mission planning landmarks, enable our system to operate robustly
in the presence of external and body-worn magnetic disturbances. Current field testing activities across a variety of
mountainous environments indicate that we can achieve high icon geo-registration accuracy (<10mrad) using these
vision-based methods.
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