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Obstacle avoidance system for helicopters and other aircraft

  • US 5,465,142 A
  • Filed: 04/30/1993
  • Issued: 11/07/1995
  • Est. Priority Date: 04/30/1993
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A system for sensing objects in the flight path of an aircraft and alerting a pilot of the aircraft to their presence, the system comprising:

  • means in the form of a laser radar subsystem for emitting a beam of laser energy, for receiving returns from objects, and for processing the returns to produce range data related to the range of the objects from the aircraft, the laser radar subsystem being mounted on an aircraft having means in the form of an avionics system for producing instrumentation data concerning the attitude and the velocity vectors of the aircraft and means in the form of a video display system for displaying information to a pilot of the aircraft;

    means in the form of a scanning subsystem that is mounted on the aircraft and operatively coupled to the laser radar subsystem for scanning the beam over a field of regard and producing directional information related to the instantaneous direction of the beam relative to the aircraft; and

    means in the form of processor circuitry operatively connected to the laser radar subsystem, the scanning subsystem, the avionics system, and the video display system, for controlling operation of the laser radar subsystem and the scanning subsystem, for processing the range data, directional information, and instrumentation data in order to produce video information related to the range and direction of the objects, and for interfacing the video information to the video display system;

    the scanning subsystem including means in the form of a first scanner mechanism including means in the form of a rotatably mounted scanning holographic optical element pair for directing the beam off axis together with means for reducing zero order beam bleed-through transmittance so that rotating the optical element produces a circular scan pattern centered on the first scan axis and means in the form of a second scanner mechanism for moving the first scan axis azimuthally in a repetitive motion so that the circular scan pattern covers the field of regard.

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