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EADS Germany is the world market leader in commercial and military Helicopter Laser Radar (HELLAS) Obstacle
Warning Systems. The HELLAS-Warning System has been introduced into the market in 2000, is in service at German
Federal Police and Royal Thai Air Force. HELLAS was also successfully evaluated by the Foreign Comparative Test
Program (FCT) of the U.S. Army and other governmental agencies.
Currently the successor system for military applications, HELLAS-Awareness, is in qualification phase. It will have
extended sensor performance, enhanced real-time data processing capabilities and advanced human machine interface
(HMI) features. Flight tests on NH90 helicopter have been successfully performed. Helicopter series integration is
scheduled to begin from 2009. We will give an outline of the new sensor unit concerning detection technology and
helicopter integration aspects. The system provides a widespread field of view with additional dynamic line of sight
steering and a large detection range in combination with a high frame rate. We will show the HMI representations.
This HELLAS system is the basis for a 3 dimensional see-and-remember-system for brown-out recovery. When landing
in sandy or dusty areas the downwash of the helicopter rotor causes clouds of visually-restrictive material that can
completely obstruct the pilot's outside reference, resulting in a complete loss of situational awareness and spatial
orientation of the pilot which can end up in total loss of aircraft control and dangerous accidents. The brown-out
recovery system presented here creates an augmented enhanced synthetic vision of the landing area with the surrounding
which is based on HELLAS range image data as well as altimeter and inertial reference information.
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