Air Beat Magazine - Journal of the
Airborne Law Enforcement Association
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Seeing What Can’t be Seen
NASA’s Visual Immersion technology
may in the future be an effective tool
for airborne law enforcement officers
By Dan Schwarbach
and Shea W. Gibbs
Sometimes, looking out of a window can be about as useful
as staring at a piece of wood, depending on weather conditions. But in the
race to return to the moon and send a manned mission to Mars, NASA has been
working on technology that can economically simulate good visibility in any
cockpit - from spacecraft to law enforcement aircraft.
In what is known as the Advanced Cockpit Evaluation
System (ACES), new visual immersion technology uses a combination of video
produced and digital images to replicate the natural environment.
"The example I like to use is the yellow line on the
football field when you’re watching an NFL game," says Jeff Fox, a flight
operations engineer at NASA.
Say you’re flying an approach with almost no visual
references available through the cockpit windows. With ACES technology, you
would have a monitor in front of you that shows the surrounding environment
with a digital model providing the obscured details. ACES can also provide a
series of digitally produced rings descending toward the runway. All you
have to do is pilot the aircraft through this overgrown, extended Slinky,
and you’ll touch down safely.
ACES uses a number of video cameras, mounted in a
horizontal circle, to collect video images from the surrounding environment.
The number of cameras is determined by just how much of the visual field you
want to represent. The images from the cameras are then sent to a computer,
which produces a digital model of the environment, as well as any digital
overlays that may be of use (such as the yellow line or the "Slinky").
Once the video is collected and the digital model is
constructed, the images are synchronized and displayed as a virtual cockpit
- a series of flat panel displays arranged in a semicircle around a pilot,
or around an observer on the ground. The view from the virtual cockpit is
composed of part video, part digital model. It can range from 100 percent
real video to 100 percent digital model - and anywhere in between -
depending on the visual conditions around the aircraft.
Recently, several members of the Houston Police
Department Helicopter Patrol evaluated ACES technology for possible
applications to aerial law enforcement. NASA has developed a simulator for
such an evaluation, the ACES van, by mounting a circular, eight-camera
arrangement on top of a Ford E350 15-passenger van and building a virtual
cockpit in the rear of the automobile.
The officers who got a chance to try out the ACES van all
agreed that there would be practical applications of the technology to
airborne law enforcement. One of the most apparent would be to have
real-time video from either a video or infrared camera superimposed over a
digital map of an area where a suspect might be. As the suspect moves about,
the tactical flight officer can follow his whereabouts and relay accurate
street names and hundred blocks by using just the screen, eliminating the
need to switch back and forth from a map to the screen or from a map and the
actual scene. Effectively, ACES technology could be merged with moving map
technology to provide a map on which one could view real-time movement of a
suspect, therefore never having to lose visual contact with the suspect to
look up his exact location on a separate map.
ACES might also have applications when officers have to
contend with restricted air space during their patrols. A
digitally-produced, three-dimensional model of restricted airspace can be
overlain on real time video, providing a pilot with not only the location of
the restricted zone, but also a visual representation of its height, width
and depth.
Fox says that if ACES were used in conjunction with a
tracking system, such as LoJack, flight officers could easily track the
location of any ground units that may be in the area.
"A lot of this stuff is already out there, we’re just
trying to think of ways to integrate it economically," he says.
Visual immersion technology is still in the development
stage, but it is moving along rapidly and may some day be utilized in law
enforcement aircraft. And when the view from the cockpit looks about as
descriptive as a two-by-four, it could be an invaluable ace up any pilot’s
sleeve. Seeing What Can’t be Seen
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