Originally Posted by Courtney Mil
Resolution is my main concern (maybe interest is a better word) for these sensors. 1 MP is roughly 1.2 million useable pixels. Assuming the sensor is square to cover its 90 x 90 degree field of view that's a resolution of roughly 1,100 x 1,100 pixels or just 12 pixels per degree. Certainly not enough to judge accurately the aspect, or much detail in a target at much more than 3,000 metres (where one pixel covers around 4m x4m). Maybe that's too far, come to think of it.
Originally Posted by Radix
Still that would make a lowres picture without zoom. You cannot ever spot detail if you use 4MP to cover a large FOV over a distance of several nm. Assuming DAS has zero zoom capability, thus it gets really difficult to track multiple targets a few nm away, because they will only be a few pixels large and particularly since the jet will be moving all the time as well leading to motion blur. This aligns with the statement of the pilot in the interview.
I would think these points hit the nail on the head, which in my view has to be, is the sensor resolution good enough to identify a target (airborne or on the ground) and to build a mental picture of what it's doing. I didn't quite follow Courtney Mil's maths, but the answer seems about right according to small angle approximation, maybe a bit generous in terms of range, and Radix is still talking 4 megapixels, not one.
It does not look like the sensor resolution is anywhere near high enough.
I recently saw the Gen III helmet and it is a bit of a monster. It's light for its bulk and the position tracking demo we saw looked pretty solid, although it was in a lab, not a moving aircraft. None of us got to try it, but the guy doing the demo did say that it's a bit slow if you you snap your head from looking out one side of the canopy to the other. It's takes only milliseconds to catch up, but is noticeable. I don't have much technical detail to share and the display was not fed from the real DAS, so it doesn't help much with the resolution question.
If they were to start the architecture from scratch today (knowing what they already do), I expect they could come up with something useful. As it is, I sadly expect that this part of the programme is going to be playing catch up for a while yet.