5 ms·

Aerospace Engineer - Enhanced Flight Vision Systems TLDR: Fancy fused infrared (LWIR/SWIR) and visible spectrum camera systems may 'soon' be on a passenger air

by kejaed 10y ago

Aerospace Engineer - Enhanced Flight Vision Systems TLDR: Fancy fused infrared (LWIR/SWIR) and visible spectrum camera systems may 'soon' be on a passenger airliner near you. Using infrared cameras to see through fog/haze to land aircraft has been happening for a while now, but only on biz jets or on FedEx aircraft with a waiver. The FAA has gained enough confidence in the systems that they have just opened up the rules to allow these camera systems to be used to land on passenger aircraft. Combine that with the fact that airports are transitioning away from incandescent lights to LEDs (meaning a purely IR sensor system is not longer enough), and you get multi-sensor image fusion work to do and a whole new market to sell them to. Here is a blog post (from a competitor of ours) talking about the new rules. https://blogs.rockwellcollins.com/2017/01/17/worth-the-wait-faas-new-efvs-rule-far-91-176/ https://blogs.rockwellcollins.com/2017/01/17/worth-the-wait-...

anfractuosity 10y ago
That sounds very interesting! Say with a car that has a heads up display for night vision, if it had an SWIR sensor and IR lights, can that cut through fog too? Or is it the LWIR that is able to do that?
- kejaed 10y ago
  SWIR sensors are there for hot burning lights. LWIR (aka thermal) sees things that are every day temperatures. Both wavelengths have better transmittance through fog than visible light so we say those sensors can 'see through' fog. The physics comes down to the wavelength of the light vs the size of the molecules of the medium the light is trying to get through [1]. Another fun part is that fog at one airport can be different than fog at another, so while the weather conditions at both locations may say visibility is "Runway Visible Range (RVR) 1000ft", that is for a pilots eyes, and the same camera may work just fine at one location and not at all at the other. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Atmospheric.transmittance.IR.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Atmosphe...

by kejaed 10y ago

anfractuosity 10y ago

That sounds very interesting! Say with a car that has a heads up display for night vision, if it had an SWIR sensor and IR lights, can that cut through fog too? Or is it the LWIR that is able to do that?

kejaed 10y ago
SWIR sensors are there for hot burning lights. LWIR (aka thermal) sees things that are every day temperatures. Both wavelengths have better transmittance through fog than visible light so we say those sensors can 'see through' fog. The physics comes down to the wavelength of the light vs the size of the molecules of the medium the light is trying to get through [1]. Another fun part is that fog at one airport can be different than fog at another, so while the weather conditions at both locations may say visibility is "Runway Visible Range (RVR) 1000ft", that is for a pilots eyes, and the same camera may work just fine at one location and not at all at the other. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Atmospheric.transmittance.IR.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Atmosphe...