“Russian Helicopters” presented helicopter cockpit of the future at the forum “Army-2021

Moscow, 23 August 2021 – ”Russian Helicopters” Holding (part of the Rostec State Corporation) at the International Military-Technical Forum “Army-2021” presented a moke-up cabin of advanced Russian helicopters made following modern requirements for ergonomics and functionality. This mock-up will allow mastering several technologies at once, including the use of sensory “glass cockpit” application, forecasting system and pilot’s decision-making support and so on.
The ergonomic cockpit mock-up research work is aimed for flight safety improvement, as well as reliability and efficiency of helicopter crews. The information and control field of the future helicopter cockpit is formed in such a way as to reduce the crew’s psychophysical and intellectual workload while in flight, as well as to maintain its full situational awareness.
“We have set ourselves a task, in cooperation with leading research centers and domestic avionics manufacturers, to find optimal technical solutions that will allow us to build new principles of interaction between pilot and helicopter, reduce the load on the crew and human factor influence, and significantly improve flight safety. Onboard avionics equipment development will seriously change the face of modern helicopters soon, and I am confident that this research work will allow us to take the lead in these changes,” said Andrey Boginsky, CEO of “Russian Helicopters”.
In the research and development process of future cockpit mock-up, several concepts and technologies will be tested. In particular, the demonstrator will explore the use of a “glass cockpit” with indication and control modern features on a single working field of a sensor dashboard. Another area of research will be intelligent crew support system application with interactive forecasting algorithms, optimal control problems solving, support system decision, space-time flight path construction optimization, including for high-precision flights in artificial obstacle conditions.
In addition, the future cabin will explore the optimal automation concept, which involves a “virtual pilot” introduction and rational functions distribution between him and the crew. The mockup will also be used to test the concept of applying augmented reality elements with a “synthetic vision” system implementation, based on information compilation from various onboard sensors and systems.
The cockpit mock-up was commissioned by Russian Helicopters on behalf of broad cooperation of avionics equipment developers and manufacturers, which includes “Research and Testing Institute of Ergatic Systems” JSC, “Navigator” JSC, FGUP GosNIIAS and the Research Test Center of Aviation and Space Medicine and Military Ergonomics of the Central Research Institute of Air Force of the Defense Ministry. The expert organization for the project is the V.P. Chkalov State Flight Research Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense (GLITS MO RF).