& Security, is also an F-16 pilot in the Alabama Air National Guard. In April 2014, his unit was deployed to Afghanistan for six months and often provided close-air support for ground troops. The hours spent training in a CRVS simulator, and “flying” the above kind of scenario, Isenberg said, helped him and other pilots prepare for those lifesaving missions. Unlike traditional visual systems that use flat screens to cobble together a 360-degree display, the CRVS uses long curved screens to present a much more natural and realistic constantresolution display—one where all pixels are the same size to the viewer, said Eric Hauquitz, lead systems engineer in St. Louis for the CRVS. With a flat-screen visual system, he said, the corners have higher resolution and the middle has lower resolution. The CRVS provides the same resolution in every part of the screen. “In the real world everything we see is constant resolution,” Hauquitz explained. “The shape of the system capitalizes on our natural field-of-view and focal length, giving the user a better feel of depth and less eye fatigue since our eyes aren’t having to constantly focus at different distances.” The smooth flow of the screen structure provides the cues necessary for the brain to become fully immersed in the simulation, he said. The patented curved shape of the screens, combined with Boeing’s screen coating, are what creates the constant resolution. The focal length, or distance from the eyes to the screen, only varies about 8 inches (20 centimeters) from the bottom of the visual system to the top, replicating the brain’s natural assumption that things higher up are farther away, Hauquitz said. “It makes what we see more like the real world,” he said. Hauquitz and his team spent many hours troubleshooting to create the perfect combination of the image generator, screens and projectors to get a clear, razor-sharp image. Even the mirrors that the images bounce off of and onto the screen are satellite-quality, ground and polished. “We have an exceptional team of professionals that have spent the past few years bringing the CRVS to life, from the initial conceptual drawing to the finished product,” Hauquitz said. “We all take personal responsibility for the performance of the system and are proud of it.” Unlike legacy training systems, the CRVS was designed for highdefinition format projectors, and the wide-screen coverage means almost every pixel in the projectors are used, Hauquitz said. This produces a crisper image, providing pilots with a more realistic training experience. Isenberg said there is no comparison between CRVS and legacy simulation technology. “With a visual system like CRVS, you really become part of that environment,” he said. “That is a very important part of the training piece—tricking your brain into those stressful situations that feel like you’re absolutely there, and thinking ‘that looks so real, if I hit that other airplane, I’m going to die.’ ” Boeing delivered the first CRVS displays in 2010 to the U.S. Air Force. Since then, they have been installed on a variety of simulator platforms, including Boeing’s AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and F-15 jet, as well as BAE’s Hawk and Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor and F-16 jets. Customer feedback, Hauquitz said, has been “ecstatic.” The CRVS’ visual acuity, or image clarity, is based on the resolution of the projectors. While the CRVS will work with the majority of highdefinition projectors on the market, Boeing’s baseline offering uses a projector that gives the user 20/40 visual acuity. Through an exclusive agreement with JVC, Boeing also offers a higher-resolution projector that Photo: A pilot trains for a refueling mission in an F-15C simulator equipped with the CRVS. RicH Rau | Boeing 32 Boeing Frontiers
Frontiers August 2015 Issue
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