Challenges of reducing landing minima and enabling single-pilot operations through the use of synthetic vision/highway-in-the-sky technologies

A synthetic vision system (SVS) developed by RTI International, Paul Snow & Associates, and Nav3D portrays terrain, obstacles, the airport environment, and pathway information in a 3D perspective view. RTI has also done preliminary work with combining imagery from a forward-looking enhanced vision sensor with the completely computer generated SVS to produce a combined vision system (CVS). This paper addresses the many certification challenges for an airborne SVS and more specifically, challenges associated with being able to use SVS to reduce landing minima and enable single pilot operations.