Optics for Aircraft Situational Awareness

Taxiing aircraft cause an estimated $100 million worth of damage per year. To prevent such damage, Meggitt Securaplane has designed a forward-facing wingtip camera that acts much like backup cameras on cars. The complex curvature of the wingtip and its orientation with respect to the camera’s optic axis cause an ordinary window to produce unwanted optical aberrations. The project’s objective is to design a window that reduces aberrations in the final image from the camera. The team designed a window that was conformal with the aircraft wing on the outside, while changing the shape of the inside surface to remove the most aberrations. The window design includes a heating element to prevent mist and frost from accumulating on the window. Because installing the camera wire feed through the wings to the cockpit is extremely costly, the design includes an antenna to transmit high-quality images directly to the pilots.