Army contracts Raytheon to improve helicopter pilots' situational awareness

MCKINNEY, Texas, 8 Oct. 2009. Raytheon Company won from the U.S. Army a $13 million contract to develop additional Linksensor prototypes for the Advanced Distributed Aperture System, which gives helicopter pilots 360-degree Linksituational awareness.

The award is the first extension of the Joint Capability Technology Demonstration contract, initially funded in September 2008.

The Army launched the ADAS program to assist pilots flying at low levels. The original system provides up to six infrared sensors and a combined helmet display showing a full view of the cockpit and other parts of the helicopter, including the engines and tail rotor.

Additional capabilities to be provided by Raytheon include an indicator of hostile fire, landing-assist symbols that appear on the helmet display for operation in low visibility, and infrared search-and-track and three-dimensional audio systems.

"These new capabilities improve the helicopter pilot's situational awareness," says Tim Carey, vice president for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems. "This high-resolution sensor system prototype has been demonstrated during test flights and has proved to provide the maneuverability and performance that our soldiers need."

Raytheon has performed more than 120 hours of extensive ADAS testing to demonstrate the system's capabilities on a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter.

The system is one of several sensor technologies developed by the company, says a representative.