Thales has introduced its high-performance TopOwl helmet mounted sight display (HMSD) featuring augmented reality, a new capability further enhancing helicopter pilots situational awareness in difficult visibility conditions.

Representing an industry-first, TopOwl is now able to provide helicopter crews with augmented reality information, projected right in front of the pilot’s eyes, such as synthetic views of the environment, made possible through the use of TopOwl’s unique fully overlapped 40-degree field of view. This synthetic view is generated in real time and superimposed on the actual terrain vision, drawing on information from integrated databases, GPS data (for helicopter position and heading) and TopOwl’s accurate pilot’s line of sight (LoS) measurement.

Projected directly on to the pilot’s helmet visor, the 3D Synthetic Vision System imaging (SVS) will give the crew a virtual representation of the world around the helicopter even in adverse weather, brownout or whiteout conditions, where pilots are no longer able to discern the ground from the air due to dust, sandstorms or snow. Detected obstacles can also be displayed in augmented reality, should the helicopter be equipped with an obstacle warning system (OWS). This new function has already been evaluated in flight.

Yves Joannic, Thales Vice President, Helicopter Avionics activities, commented, “Our role is to work constantly towards improving crew safety and mission success. We leverage Thales expertise in head up displays for both passenger and fighter aircraft together with our experience in helmet mounted sight displays for helicopters to provide the market with crewfocused innovations.”