CAE, of Montreal, and Neptec Design Group, of Ottawa, demonstrated a system integrating Neptec’s Obscurant Penetrating Autosynchronous LIDAR (OPAL) sensor and CAE’s Augmented Visionics System (AVS) designed to support safer helicopter operations in near-zero visibility. During recent testing at the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona, Neptec’s OPAL was used to successfully penetrate dust clouds generated by the UH-1 test helicopter. The companies said OPAL could “see through” brownout conditions opaque to the human eye to easily differentiate between rocks, bushes, sloping terrain, utility poles, ground vehicles, and wires at distances greater than 200 meters.