Abstract

Helicopter flights are regularly performed in Degraded Visual Environments (DVEs) at low visibility. For this special type of operations special flight guidance systems as Helmet-Mounted Displays (HMDs) can both increase pilots’ situational awareness and help them in task performance. At the Rotorcraft Simulation Environment (ROSIE) of the TUM Institute of Helicopter Technology the benefit of an HMD in this context is part of ongoing research. This thesis extends the 3D-conformal symbology, used at the simulator, by an infrared imaging sensor simulated in real-time. Starting with a comparison of radiometric rendering and conventional computer graphics all relevant modules for a realistic infrared simulation are introduced. This is done using the example of various simulators from literature. Two shader-based approaches are presented and integrated into the HMD of ROSIE. In addition, the use of machine learning for synthetic infrared image generation is investigated. Finally, the spectral shader-based approach is evaluated comparing it with other simulators and real images.

Results/Implementation/Project Description

Conclusion

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