New sensor aims to give F-35 pilots a 'window into the night'.

• Author: Jean, Grack V.
• Position: Inside Science + Technology

F-35 fighter pilots will wear a helmet that allows them to peer into the darkness with ease--but only if a new digital sensor proves itself as capable as or better than existing night vision technology.

To fly combat missions in blackout conditions, today's fighter pilots clip onto their helmets special aviator night vision systems that amplify low-level light. They look through the imaging technology as they would a pair of binoculars. In front of their eyes, they see a 40-degree circular field of view that illuminates their dark surroundings. But aviators complain that the spotlight-like perspective offers up a limiting "soda straw" picture of the world.

F-35 pilots, on the other hand, won't have to spy through tubes. Instead they will have an enhanced nighttime picture projected onto their visors via their helmet-mounted display system.

"It really is a window into the night," says Andres "Drew" Brugal, president of Vision Systems International, the Silicon Valley, Calif - based joint venture between Elbit Systems of America and Rockwell Collins that is developing the helmet-mounted display system.

The F-35 Lightning II is the Pentagon's first tactical fighter aircraft to forgo the cockpit-mounted heads-up display found in fourth-generation jets including the F-16, F-15 and F/A-18. All of the pertinent targeting and avionics information, such as altitude, airspeed and heading, are provided to the pilot via the helmet-mounted display. Tracking devices inside the aircraft help computers overlay the correct symbols and imagery in front of the pilot's eyes as he turns his head to look out the canopy window.

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The helmet-mounted display also incorporates night vision. But that part of the system is falling short of the program's 20/20 resolution expectations, officials said.

When an F-35 pilot needs to land on the deck of an aircraft carrier or an amphibious ship at night, for example, there are certain functions he has to be able to perform in order to accomplish the lights-out touchdown safely.

"The challenge is making sure we provide that acuity, that sensitivity for him to be able to see in the dark," said Casey Contain, director of F-35 electro-optics and helmet systems at Lockheed Martin Corp., the prime contractor for the program.

The fighter's main night vision capability originally was to be derived from the network of aircraft-mounted sensors called the distributed aperture system, or DAS. The six mid-wave...