Welcome to FlySense, an Augmented Reality based assistive technology aimed to revolutionize the world of flight!

Helicopter pilots have one of the toughest jobs in the world. Their jobs are usually task and sensory saturated, with limited ability to process new information and many different controls to be used at an instant. However, there aren’t many aides for helicopter pilots that present useful information in a relevant way. The U.S. military has invested millions of dollars in state-of-the-art headsets for conveying all sorts of information to fighter pilots in real-time, but nothing close to that technology has been introduced in the commercial domain given the current price point and the focus on assisting firing and targeting systems.

Helicopter pilots face difficulties in different phases of flight and mission types. Some of these are low-altitude flights, landing in tight spaces with fixed structures and navigation in low visibility scenarios. Out of the listed flight stages, one of the most critical is flight at an altitude below 200ft AGL (Above Ground Level) where, unlike commercial airplanes, there is no autonomous piloting features in place to aid with landing.

Helicopter pilots resort to their instruments, but above all look for landmarks they know the size of to judge how far they are from obstacles. Nonetheless, this can be even more difficult when flying in unfamiliar environments, in areas where the landscape is monotonous (e.g. desert, or a grass field) or in situations where it’s hard to judge obstacles that can cause a crash (e.g. a pole near the tail rotor).

The project’s focus is to assist helicopter pilots in the difficult flight phases mentioned above by creating a system that gives needed information to the pilot in the least intrusive way. The project aims to bridge the gap between the risky status quo and the technologies yet to be seen in this domain.  We want to develop a core set of versatile technologies that accomplish a few of the important objectives.