PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF MILLIMETER WAVE ASSISTED HELICOPTER LANDING IN BROWNOUT CONDITIONS

Abstract

Helicopters provide a relatively fast and flexible means of transport both for civilian and military use. The use of helicopters and the safety of helicopters and its occupants largely depend on various factors like the environment of operation, the pilot competence, experience, and skill, and other external factors among others. In civilian environment, most of the helicopters are used for transport as well as for emergencies. Helicopters in military environment on the other hand has more applications and are in danger or experiencing various dangerous conditions that may result in helicopter crash. Brownout condition is one common challenge experience mostly by the helicopter used in military environments. A brownout condition occurs when the rotary blade of a helicopter blows the loosely packed sand particles onto the air causing dust like cloud that can obscure the vision of the pilot. It is paramount therefore to have a system that can help the pilot land the helicopter safely even if the vision is obscured. A millimeter wave (MMW) technology is one such technology that can be applied to assist in safe landing of the helicopter by the pilot. Various sand samples from different areas were collected and experiments carried out in the laboratory to determine the applicability of MMWs in assisting the pilot. Various experiments under different conditions were carried out emulating brownout conditions in laboratory and the results showed that MMWs waves could penetrate the dust storms at almost zero visibility where optical signal will be totally attenuated. Furthermore, it is also shown that various sand with different sand condition and particle sizes and number per square meters contributed different attenuation level representing laboratory equivalent techniques to demonstrate brownout conditions quantitatively. There is no published work beyond 240GHz to assess the brownout conditions. Therefore, it’s the first time the application of MMWs up to 300 GHz is investigated iv and proved to be applicable. Also, a novel way of generating brownout conditions in a laboratory environment is presented in this work. This thesis therefore presents a research to characterize the use of MMWs can be applied in brownout conditions to assist the pilots to land the helicopters safely.