A Laser Obstacle Warning and Avoidance system for Manned and Unmanned Aircraft

In this paper we briefly review the research and flight test activities performed to develop and integrate the Laser Obstacle Avoidance and Monitoring (LOAM) system on helicopter platforms and focus on the recent research advances towards the development of a new scaled LOAM variant for small-to-medium size Unmanned Aircraft (UA) platforms. After a brief description of the system architecture and sensor characteristics, emphasis is given to the performance models and data processing algorithms developed for obstacle detection, classification and calculation of alternative flight paths, as well as to the flight test activities performed on various military platforms. A concluding section provides an overview of current LOAM research developments with a focus on non-cooperative UA Sense-and-Avoid (SAA) applications.