Advanced sensors and AI will help map the terrain and guide pilots.
When a helicopter seeks to land, target enemies or maneuver through mountainous terrain in snowy, foggy, sandstorm-covered areas, pilot crews can struggle to know where the ground is, a certain combat liability and potentially lethal circumstance. For years, the Army has been refining, experimenting with and testing various Degraded Visual Environment sensor technologies engineered to help helicopters navigate and sustain operations amid circumstances where vision, line of sight or images from standard camera sensors are obscured.
Current work is likely looking at artificial intelligence-enabled sensors and new applications able to see through otherwise inoperable conditions, and much of it is evolving out of the Army’s experience fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In response to an U.S. Central Command Operational Needs Statement as far back as 2011, the Army acquired a limited number of sensors, something t