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MSE engineers visit Nimitz carrier to test new machine vision system

MSE Technology Applications engineers, Jim McConnell and Fred LaForest, recently spent five days at sea aboard the USS Nimitz (CVN-68), one of the Navy’s nuclear-powered air craft carriers.

By the Standard Staff

McConnell and LaForest worked on the flight deck during at-sea carrier qualifi cations, testing a new machine vision system that verifies proper engagement of the aircraft launch bar in the carrier’s catapult system.

The new verification sys tem was developed by MSE Technology Applications at the Mike Mansfield Advanced Technology Center in Butte’s Industrial Park, under a Small Business Innovation Research contract with the Naval Air Warfare Center at Lakehurst, N.J.

The Navy has lost aircraft due to improper launch bar engagement, and MSE’s system will help prevent that from happening in the future, a spokesman said.

The system also minimizes safety risks to flight deck personnel, who will no longer have to work under neath the intake duct of a jet engine operating at full power.

The MSE system uses a video camera embedded in a deck lighting fixture and a pattern recognition soft ware program which exam ines the image and deter mines if all the necessary parameters are satisfied before launching an air craft.

The catapult officer can view real-time close up video of the launch bar engagement while the computer displays the system sta tus. In cases where the launch bar is not properly engaged, the system locks out the catapult firing circuit, thereby preventing an air craft launch. With the system’s low-light level TV cam era and filtering sub-system, the video produced is better than what can be seen on the flight deck by the unaided human eye.

The at-sea testing success fully demonstrated that MSE’s machine vision sys tem is not affected by the severe operating conditions on an aircraft carrier flight deck, including foul weather, shock, vibration, and electro magnetic interference, a spokesman said.

If the Navy adopts the MSE machine vision system, it will be installed on all Navy aircraft carriers, according to a news release.

http://www.mtstandard.com/newslocal/lnews6.html

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