Airborne navigation with onboard InfraRed Sensors

Infrared Sensors are widely used nowadays on Aircrafts (rotary and fixed wing) to help pilot's activities. The infrared information of the surrounding area are used mainly for two different purposes: Navigation and Search & Track-While-Scan. Navigation functions, commonly identified with the name of Imaging Modes, are devoted to aid pilots in conjunction with advanced human machine interfaces such as Head Up Display (HUD) and Helmet Mounted Display (HMD). The availability of IR images generated from airborne opto- electronics equipment can support the pilot during navigation in adverse weather conditions, providing important information about external threats (i.e. obstacles), otherwise not detectable by human eye. Search & Track-While-Scan, is a functionality related to surveillance. It includes combination of automatic detection and tracking functions within a wide search volume. These features are typically executed in automatic way and generate the position of possible threats present in the flight path. In general Search & Track-While-Scan outputs are not displayed together with the IR image because the main purpose is to provide the estimated positions of the detected targets; nevertheless, if the Imaging Modes and Tracking capabilities are operated simultaneously in an integrated framework, the overall scenario representation can be improved and the situation awareness increased. This paper will focus on the airborne navigation by means of Infrared Sensors by considering the benefits but also possible limits and areas of improvements.