Monday, March 19, 2007

GERFAUT: SAFRAN’s eye, sharper and sharper

GERFAUT: SAFRAN’s eye, sharper and sharper
Military Aviation and Defense | Wednesday 11 May 2005

Sagem Défense Sécurité, a SAFRAN Group subsidiary, now enters the select few members of HMDS manufacturers by winning, with the Gerfaut HMDS, the competition for the development, the industrialisation and the serial production of the HMDS for the Rafale aircraft.

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Technological breakthrough: miniaturisation of LCD displays and optical Head Tracking System (HTS)

The new generation combat avionics systems comprise equipment that multiplies the offensive capacities of the aircraft : the Helmet Mounted Display & Sight (HMDS). With the help of this new helmet, which provides symbology on the visor, the pilot can designate his target simply by looking at it thus saving previous seconds in dogfight, which gives full meaning to the saying “first sight, first shot”.

Technological breakthrough

The Gerfaut success once again demonstrates the ability of SAFRAN Group companies to choose the technological breakthrough at the right time, here with the miniaturisation of LCD displays and the optical Head Tracking System (HTS).

Regarding the LCD displays, they are already part of mature technologies used in the field of military avionics and it is the miniaturisation that can be achieved today (here, for the Gerfaut, the size of the display is similar to the one of a 1 Euro coin) that makes them nicely suitable of HMDS applications since they dramatically outcome their predecessors, the Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT): light weight, no high voltage in the helmet, no distorsion due to temperature. The use of such displays significantly improves the ergonomy of the helmet and enables the pilot to concentrate on his mission.

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For the French Rafale, 336 Gerfaut HMDS have been ordered so far

Growth opportunities

Regarding the optical Head Tracking System, this is based on the following principle: clusters of Light Emitting Diodes (LED), the geometry of which being well known, are fitted on the helmet outer shell and are continuously recorded by small cameras installed in the aircraft cabin. Image processing, at high frequency, allows to restitute the geometry of the clusters and thus to compute the position and line of sight of the pilot. Compared to previous techniques, the major advantages of this optical technology is the accuracy and the immunity to electromagnetic perturbations; this enables the pilot to force his missile seekers or his optical captors on the line of sight indicated by his head.

For the French RAFALE, 336 Gerfaut HMDS have been ordered so far. The Gerfaut is also part of the avionics suite of the export Rafale. With this success in the field of individual equipment for pilots, Sagem Défense Sécurité enters new growth opportunities.

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