star wars cockpit display screens made in china
A new 3D technology aims to give mobile devices the power to display holographic images and video. Partly inspired by a scene from Star Wars where a holographic image of Princess Leia pleads for help from Obi-Wan Kenobi, the appropriately named ‘Leia’ recently demonstrated a prototype of its display at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
A 3D projection like the one featured in Star Wars may be a step too far at the moment. But, unlike conventional 3D movies that can only be seen from one angle, Leia’s designers say it offers a real sense of depth and can be viewed from 64 different angles - all without the need for 3D glasses.
Leia CEO David Fattal says their technology is a first for mobile displays: “It’s a display that is able to project 64 different images, going in different directions of space. So that when you look at it, your left eye and your right eye will actually see a different image and you will see in 3D. And not only that, but when you move your head around the display - you can rotate or tilt or shift the display - your eyes will see a different pair every time and you will get the sense of parallax, which means you will be able to see around objects as well.”
Fattal hit upon the idea for the holographic display while he was a researcher at HP Labs. His work with optical interconnects, which let computers exchange information encoded in light, led him to realize the same principle could be used to display holographic images. Structures called diffraction gratings normally send light rays through cables to transmit data, but Fattal engineered the gratings to transmit light in prescribed directions in space.
The makers also developed a way to make the holograms come out of a conventional LCD screen, by simply incorporating their own technology. Conventional LCDs have a component called a backlight, consisting of a light source and a plastic light-guiding panel that directions the light toward the display’s pixels. Leia essentially replaces the standard light guide with their own more sophisticated panel.
“It’s a very simple LCD technology, which is the technology that equips most of the cell phones and most of the regular displays today. As we essentially change just one small chief component which is called the backlight and we introduce our nano technology on to it. It sounds very scary but actually it’s very benign and cheap to do. And out of this we’re able to send rays of light into space instead of disorganized light that would propagate in all directions,” said Fattal.
Fattal says their technology could be easily integrated with existing displays: “Anywhere you have a display you would be able to replace the display and augment it with this 3D imagery. So, for example, you start with a smart watch or eventually a smart phone or a tablet. But you could have (it) in any appliance; you could have a display on a fridge or any appliance at home, a remote control or your garage opener. You could have something in a car, for example, it might be a key fob or it might be a GPS display in a car where you would see, for example, building coming out slightly in 3D, like a Google map application.”
Later this year the company plans to release a small display module that can produce full-color 3D images and videos. It was the switch from a black-and-white to color display that proved most difficult for the developers, Fattal said.
“Probably the hardest part was to move from monochrome to color. The physics that this display is based on is called diffraction. Diffraction is basically a technology that behaves very differently with different colors of light. So if you don’t pay attention the red, green and blue component of your image should go in very different directions. And our core technology and our core invention was how to make these three colors work together to produce, for example, a white image that you saw or a full color image.”
The Force is strong with China this week. For the first time ever, the Star Warsfilms A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back,and Return of the Jediare being screened in mainland China. The films are being shown as part of the Shanghai International Film Festival.
“This will be the first-ever theatrical screening of the original trilogy in China. The huge buzz and excitement generated is going to be great for theStar Wars franchise and the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” Kerwin Lo, vice president and general manager of Walt Disney Studios China, told Agence France-Presse.
The original A New Hope) premiered in the United States in May 1977, followed by an international release — but the sci-fi blockbuster never made it China. The nation had just emerged from the Cultural Revolution under Communist leader Mao Tse-Tung, who had banned the import of foreign culture. Not until 1986 — three years after Return of the Jedi— did major Hollywood studios strike a deal to distribute new films in China. As a result, many Chinese movie fans are more familiar with the ‘90s Star Wars prequels, which did premiere theatrically, than with the original films.
Unfortunately, Disney has no plans to give the original trilogy a nationwide theatrical release — so the rest of China won’t get to see Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader battle it out on the big screen. Not that everyone in China is a diehard Star Wars fan. Reviewing the film on the Chinese website Douban, one user writes, “Although the character design is weak, the leading actress not beautiful, the leading actor not handsome and the action parts like children fighting, placed in 1977, the visual effects are amazing.”
“The single hardest thing about flying the F-16 is handling the bewildering onslaught of information,” wrote historian Peter Aleshire in his 2004 book Eye of the Viper: The Making of an F-16 Pilot.“The [Heads-Up Display] displays 20 different key bits of information about the airplane, from headings to weapons locks. The switches on the stick offer about sixteen choices at the flick of the thumb. The radio buzzes and chatters with calls from every jet in the air, not to mention crucial instructions from the ground and distantAWACS controllers.”
Collins Aerospacesays it can bring cutting-edge avionics, software, sensors, networks and information displays to the nascent NGAD project. To support its claim, Collins Aerospace put a mock fighter cockpit on the showroom floor at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air Space & Cyber Conference at National Harbor, Maryland last month.
The “Sixth-Gen Fighter Technology Demonstrator,” or 6GFTD, is meant to show how a sixth-generation fighter cockpit layout could look so that pilots can get the most information possible in the easiest, most digestible way possible.
Task & Purpose took the demonstrator for a spin at the Air Space & Cyber Conference, and the first thing this reporter noticed is that the control panels look more like an iPad than the carnival of buttons and switches like the one he saw in the cockpit of a B-52 bomber inDr. Strangelove. Touchscreen surfaces are not brand-new to military aviation: the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps already use them in the cockpits of their fifth-generation F-35 fighters. Hurst said the 6GFTD allows pilots to easily tailor the information shown on the cockpit’s many touchscreen displays to their individual preferences.
Flashing lights and audio warning tones have been a mainstay in fighter cockpits for decades, but the 6GFTD introduces a new warning system that gives new meaning to the phrase “flying by the seat of your pants.” Included in the demonstrator was what Hurst called a vibrotactile haptic system, which is a fancy name for the cockpit buzzing when something bad happens. For example, if a surface-to-air missile targets the aircraft from the right hand side, the pilot would feel a vibration from their seat on that side of their body. There would also be a signal on the screen of their control panel, and another on the HUD hanging over their eyes.
Though the CCA that will work alongside NGAD are still in development, the technology demonstrator cockpit made by Collins Aerospace is meant to help try out new ways of commanding those aircraft and processing information generated by them. At the conference last month, this reporter “flew” with six CCAs under the callsign “Minion.” The mission had two objectives: destroy a surface-to-air missile on the ground and “achieve a certain level of jamming against the threat,” Hurst explained.
My brave robot wingman, Minion 2, was equipped with jamming equipment, so Minion 2 was sent in to jam the enemy threat. Unfortunately, Minion 2 had a sensor failure and could no longer jam the threat. Using the cockpit touchscreen, Hurst ordered the robot into loiter mode and reassigned Minion 4 to take over. But things were about to get worse: Minion 5, one of the bomb-carrying planes, had a weapons failure, and could not drop bombs on the target. Then Minions 3 and 4 were shot down, leaving only two jammers and one bomb dropper left. To make matters worse, a cybersecurity attack left the weapons on the reporter’s own aircraft useless.
Sending wingmen to do dangerous tasks is something military pilots have done for a long time. The difference here is that the wingmen are robots, the orders and results can be given and displayed on a touch screen with the tap of a finger, and the 6GFTD also calls upon several algorithms to weigh the changing mission variables in order to calculate the chance of mission success. For Star Wars fans, there are parallels between this tech and the role that the droid R2D2, and other droids, played in assisting their Rebel pilots. Additionally, the system’s “operational reasoner” is a lot like C-3PO, who jumps at every chance to remind his human colleagues that the chances of surviving a flight through an asteroid field or other dangerous task are something like “approximately 3,720 to one!”
The Air Force has shown in the past how good it is at adapting technology to work better with humans. Penney pointed out that when the F-4 Phantom fighter jet debuted in the 1960s, it was so advanced and complex that it required a second cockpit and crew member to manage its sensors and weapons systems. Fast forward a few years and Air Force fighter pilots were flying the F-15 Eagle, an even more advanced fighter than the F-4, but which, for the most part, has only one cockpit and one crew member. What changed?
Even the F-15 Eagle will probably seem like a bygone era compared to what could be coming down the pike with NGAD. Hurst would know: he spent 2,000 hours flying the F-15C and knows how antiquated the Eagle’s cockpit is in comparison.
“We didn’t have any displays like this,” said Hurst, who stopped flying F-15s four years ago and retired from the military two years ago. Hurst said he and his fellow Eagle pilots had only one color display, a six-by-six inch moving map. “Everything else is monochrome green. There’s dials and there’s about 200 switches or buttons or knobs. So it’s time to move on, and something like this would be the next thing for sure.”
Update: 10/7/2022;This article was updated after publication with additional context that explains how the Sixth-Gen Fighter Technology Demonstrator functions similarly to the droids of the Star Wars universe.
A gigantic 90-degree curved LED digital signage installation, set above a retail space in Chengdu, China, is showing a 3D-effect video which appears to show a Star Trek-like spaceship emerging from the screen to the space in front of it.
The J-20 has a long and blended fuselage, with a chiseled nose section and a frameless canopy. Immediately behind the cockpit are low-observable diverterless supersonic inlet (DSI) intakes. All-moving canard surfaces with pronounced dihedral are placed behind the intakes, followed by leading edge extensions merging into the delta wing with forward-swept trailing edges. The aft section has twin outward canted all-moving fins, short but deep ventral strakes, and conventional or low-observable engine exhausts.
The aircraft features a fully-digital glass cockpit with one primary large color liquid-crystal display (LCD) touchscreen, three smaller auxiliary displays, and a wide-angle holographic heads-up display (HUD).redundancy.helmet-mounted display (HMD) system, which displays combat information inside the pilots" helmet visor and facilities firing missiles at high off-boresight angle.
The aircraft is equipped with a retractable refueling probe embedded on the right side of the cockpit, to help the fighter to maintain stealth while flying greater distances.
On 24 November 2015, a new J-20 prototype, numbered "2017", took to the sky. The most significant change in the new prototype was the reshaped cockpit canopy, which provides the pilot with greater visibility. The lack of other design changes suggested that "2017" is very close to the final J-20 production configuration. Since "2017" was likely the last J-20 prototype, the low rate initial production (LRIP) of the J-20 is likely to begin in 2016.frozen and finalized, as formal ceremonies were held for the prototype "2017" after completing the flight testing.
Pilot training for the J-20 started as early as March 2017, after the fighter entered limited service in the initial operational capability (IOC) phase. During the IOC phase, the fighters equipped with radar reflectors, also known as Luneburg lens to enlarge and conceal the actual radar cross section.
The airframe is constructed from metal alloys and composite materials for high strength and low weight, the airframe"s aerodynamic layout adopts a "tail-less canard delta" wing configuration. A large delta wing is mid-mounted towards the rear of the fuselage, while a pair of canards (or foreplanes) are mounted higher up and towards the front of the fuselage, behind and below the cockpit. This configuration provides very high agility, especially at low speeds, and also reduces stall speed, allowing for a lower airspeed during instrument approaches. A large vertical tail is present on top of the fuselage and small ventral fins underneath the fuselage provide further stability.
The cockpit is covered by a two-piece bubble canopy providing 360 degrees of visual coverage for the pilot. The canopy lifts upwards to permit cockpit entry and exit. The Controls take the form of a conventional centre stick and a throttle stick located to the left of the pilot. These also incorporate "hands on throttle and stick" (HOTAS) controls.ejection seat is provided for the pilot, permitting safe ejection in an emergency even at zero altitude and zero speed.
The cockpit has three liquid crystal (LCD) Multi-function displays (MFD) along with a Chinese developed holographic head-up display (HUD), all of which are fully compatible with a domestic Chinese advanced helmet mounted sight (HMS), claimed by Chinese to be superior to the HMS on the Sukhoi Su-27 sold to China.
For J-10B, the nose cone is modified to accommodate an active phased array airborne radar (AESA) radar.Neijiang, Sichuan. Mr. Zhang Kunhui became the deputy head of 607th Research Institute in 1997, and four years later in 2001, he became the head of the institute, when the AESA program for J-10B started. The primary contractor of this AESA is the Radar and Electronic Equipment Research Academy of Aviation Industry Corporation of China located in Sichuan, formed in March 2004 by combining the 607th Research Institute and 171st Factory together with Mr. Zhang Kunhui was named as the head of the research academy. According to Chinese governmental media, the AESA for J-10B took 8 years to develop, finally completed in 2008, and Chinese fighter radars hence achieved a quantum leap in that it went from mechanically scanned planar slotted array directly into AESA, skipping the passive phased array PESA radar.Beijing in Sept 2011, Chinese official sources have claimed it is an AESA.
Looking for the best Lego Star Wars sets in the galaxy? You"re in the right place. Since it began in 1999, Lego"s Star Wars range has been consistently one of the most popular. From micro-scale models of TIE Fighters to gargantuan recreations of the Millennium Falcon, there"s a Lego Star Wars set to suit all ages, skills and price ranges. And we"re here to help you find the best sets for you.
There have been over 800 Lego Star Wars sets released in the last 20 years, spanning the full Skywalker Saga and just about every Star Wars spin-off there"s ever been. Not every one of those 800 sets has been unique: for example, we"ve had no less than eight different version of Luke Skywalker"s Landspeeder. And many of them have long since retired, of course, but even now there are over 80 Star Wars sets currently available(opens in new tab) on Lego"s website.
So: just how do you pick out the best Lego Star Wars sets? Hopefully we can help. In this guide, we"ve rounded up our favorite Star Wars sets currently available, and we"ve split them into four handy categories based on price. Whether you"re looking for a sub-$30 set, a Lego Star Wars set under $100, under $250 or the biggest, most expensive, we"ve got you covered.
Want help choosing another Lego set? Follow the links through to our buyer"s guides for the best Lego space sets and best Lego Marvel sets. And if you"re looking for a great deal, head on over to our Lego Star Wars deals, best Lego deals and Lego space deals pages.
One of the most iconic ships in Star Wars history, the Imperial TIE Fighter is a great addition to any collection. A solid build that comes with a cockpit that opens and can fit mini figures inside, the Imperial TIE Fighter is the ideal set for someone just getting into Lego Star Wars, or for a collector who wants a whole fleet on his shelf.
Lego has been doing a really good job recently of creating sets for iconic Lego Star Wars ships that won’t break the bank. As more and more young viewers get into the franchise, this line of ships under £50 is a great way to collect some of the best designs ever, without having to fork out for the UCS series.
Lego Star Wars Boba Fett was part of the first wave of Lego helmets to come along back in 2020, and since then many others have spawned. Boba Fett remains one of the most popular, though, and it’s not hard to see why. Its design is iconic, and the color scheme makes it stand out against more monochromatic sets in the range, like the all-black Darth Vader or all-white Stormtrooper.
One of the newest Lego Star Wars helmets available, The Mandalorian Helmet is every bit as wonderful as it should be. Looking at it, you can almost hear Din Djarin’s gruff but lovable voice coming out of it. All it’s missing is a little Grogu peering over its shoulder, but we can’t have everything.
Whether you’re a die-hard fan of The Mandalorian, or you simply want a way to represent one of the cutest characters in a galaxy far, far away, The Child build-and-display model is a wonderful set. While some of the building instructions could be slightly clearer, and there’s not a great variety in the bricks included, once built, it looks fantastic on a shelf. Not to mention the poseable ears that add plenty of character to the small green alien that stole the hearts of so many, including The Mandalorian himself.
Since he first stepped foot onto our screens in 1977, Darth Vader has become an icon of not only Star Wars, but cinema as a whole. One of the most iconic outfits and helmets of all time, it’s only natural that Darth Vader has received many Lego recreations. This Lego Star Wars set captures his helmet well, but there’s a bit of a problem. While Darth Vader’s helmet is legendary, it’s almost entirely black which makes it a bit of a boring build, and also somewhat confusing.
The Bad Batch Attack Shuttle is unique in the fact that it essentially provides three sets in one. You get five Bad Batch minifigures (plus a Gonk Droid Lego figure), two speeder bikes, and a shuttle which essentially makes this Lego Star Wars set more of a playset than a display item.
There’s much fun to be had with the adjustable wings for landing/flight mode and the spring-loaded shooters. Plus, you can even flip open the cockpit and see the detailed cabin inside The Bad Batch Attack Shuttle. It’s also a great way to get many exclusive figures, each sporting unique versions of the iconic clone trooper armor. This whole set is very accurate to the Star Wars: The Bad Batch TV show, capturing its visuals well. A must-have for fans of the Clone Force 99 missions.
Yoda is undoubtedly one of the most popular – and most easily recognizable – characters in the whole of the Star Wars universe. His charm is perhaps only matched by the recent addition of Grogu in The Mandalorian, Disney+’s TV series, but the original green fellow is still loved by many. And so this Lego representation of him is delightful in just about every way.
Would you like a Millennium Falcon Lego set that doesn’t require you to move into a new five-bedroom house to store it? Well, you’re in luck. Following the redesign in 2017 for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this new Millennium Falcon design was used again for Rise of Skywalker, giving us an affordable option that looks great.
The Razor Crest is one of the very best designs of the modern Star Wars era. Everything about The Mandalorian was so cool, combining retro Star Wars aesthetics with modern technology to make something that just looks fantastic – it’s as if the Razor Crest could have been a discarded concept ship from the 70s.
If you asked for the Lego Star Wars AT-AT, you might initially have a heart attack at the price. There"s now a $850 AT-AT(opens in new tab) model in the Lego Star Wars family, making it the most expensive set in the history of the line. But, fear not, there’s a cheaper set that looks almost as good, even if it’s about half the size.
The Lego AT-AT comes with a cool selection of minifigures, and has space inside the model to display them. The legs could be a bit sturdier, but considering they were taken down by a dinky little ship with a bit of cable strapped to the end, it might be a more realistic depiction of the walker than we first thought.Be sure to check out our in-depthLego AT-AT review
You know a set is going to be impressive when the Lego Store was recommending that people take it home using wheels rather than carry it. At the time, the UCS Millennium Falcon was the biggest set ever released. While Lego Millennium Falcons have impressed in the past with their detail, seeing this thing next to one of the lower cost models makes it look tiny in comparison. If you’ve got enough room to display this thing, and trust us, you might need to clear the spare room to do so, it’s a must buy.
Few Lego Star Wars sets are as impressive in size and scope as Lego Star Wars Mos Eisley Cantina. This gargantuan set really gives you a sense of the scale of the Mos Eisley Cantina, the Tatooine tavern that we were first introduced to in A New Hope. The set opens up to reveal a full interior inside, complete with seating booths, a well-stocked bar, and outside space to dock your landspeeder or Dewback.
While the Imperial Star Destroyer does accurately replicate one of the most imposing and menacing ships in the whole Star Wars franchise, as the spiritual follow-up to the UCS Millennium Falcon, it’s a bit of a disappointment. An incredible feat of engineering, the center mass of the build is a web of beams and bricks that make you feel like you’re actually building something meant to last rather than a weak display model.
Lego Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Child:Was $19.99now $12.97 at Amazon(opens in new tab)Build your own Grogu and Mandalorian in BrickHeadz form in this adorable duo set.
These Lego BrickHeadz versions of the beloved stars of the "Star Wars" series "The Mandalorian" lets you build miniature versions of The Child (who we know is called Grogu, but will forever be Baby Yoda) and the Mandalorian.
Lego Star Wars: AT-AT vs. Tauntaun Microfighters:Was $19.99now $16.00 at Amazon(opens in new tab)Kids ages six and up can recreate part of the Battle of Hoth using this quick-to-build set with an AT-AT Walker and Tauntaun construction models.
Lego Star Wars: Resistance X-Wing:$19.99 at Amazon(opens in new tab)The tiniest of "Star Wars" fans will enjoy this small set depicting the famous X-Wing that Luke Skywalker flew to destroy the Death Star. At just 60 pieces, it"s suitable for kids aged four and older.
Lego Star Wars "The Empire Strikes Back" Action Battle Hoth Generator Attack:$32.99now $29.99 at Amazon(opens in new tab)Recreate one of the most iconic battles of the original series of "Star Wars" with this mini set about the Battle of Hoth. With 235 pieces, this is ideal for kids who are seven years of age and older.
The Battle of Hoth has a perfect rendition here for kids who are just getting to know the original series trilogy of "Star Wars". The set is aimed at children ages seven and older and has only 231 pieces. The flaming Lego pieces is a nice touch, showing how much firepower went into the famous standoff between the Dark Side and the Jedi.
Lego Star Wars: Sith Troopers Battle Pack:$23.95 at Amazon(opens in new tab)Who knew the Dark Side was so colorful? Lego"s 105-piece Sith Trooper Battle Pack includes three brilliant red Sith troopers (two jet troopers and one regular) along with a First Order Officer and speeder.
Lego Star Wars: "The Mandalorian" Trouble on Tatooine:Was $29.99now $23.99 at Amazon(opens in new tab)There"s a battle brewing on the famous Tatooine planet, and kids can figure out what to do next. It"s just 276 pieces and suitable for people aged seven and older.
The Mandalorian and a Tusken Raider from the series "The Mandalorian" can play starring roles in your desert missions in the Trouble on Tatooine set. In 276 pieces, you"ll get The Mandalorian’s speeder bike (including a Lego minifigure seat and saddlebag for the Child), a Tusken hut and missile-shooting ballista for the Tusken Raider.Today"s best Lego Star Wars deals
Cockpit displays are central to some of the flight-critical applications and capabilities of today’s modern aircraft Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) setups. Avionics companies are using new software to make Primary Flight Displays (PFDs) and Multi-function Displays (MFDs) enhance some of the most basic pilot tasks, such as landing in poor visibility. Displays serve an important role both on newer airframes — such as the Airbus A350 XWB, which features six large, fully interchangeable Liquid-Crystal Display (LCD) screens, or Gulfstream’s new G500/600 Symmetry flight deck, which features 10 touch-screen displays — and for retrofitting legacy aircraft to replace steam gauges and aging Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) screens with high definition, high resolution displays for flight critical information.
According to Avionics Magazine’s Cockpit Display Survey, 40 percent of our readers are looking to acquire new cockpit displays for their current fleet of aircraft, proving that new cockpit display system technology enjoys a healthy demand for retrofitting purposes. The overwhelming majority — nearly 80 percent of our readers — say that reliability is their top concern when looking to replace their current displays, while another 44 percent of respondents point to size as their primary focus when upgrading. Additionally, 41 percent of readers want LCD technology, whereas 35 percent are looking to display information about nearby air traffic in their cockpit.
Esterline Corp., which recently announced its acquisition of Belgian cockpit display supplier Barco, is definitely still seeing demand from operators, system integrators and OEMs looking to use its display technology for retrofitting legacy cockpits. In 2014, CMC experienced equal demand for their displays for use with retrofit versus forward fit activities. According to Marc Bouliane, product director for smart displays and common technologies at CMC, one of the leading needs driving operators to upgrade is so that legacy airframes can handle advanced operational concepts for Communication, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) and Air Traffic Management (ATM) applications coming available under the world’s two largest airspace modernization projects currently ongoing: NextGen in the United States and the Single European Sky in Europe.
“CMC as an organization has a traditional background of doing retrofit activities. We have a number of proposals out on doing retrofit on a number of platforms and really those retrofits are aimed at the NextGen/SESAR capabilities and how customers can get there,” says Bouliane. “In some cases we have had proposals in the defense market where we are being asked to deploy a display system that would be certified so that they can operate those aircraft in commercial airspace. There is a big ongoing demand on the retrofit side, in fact our proposals that we are submitting on the retrofit side are for sizable fleets of aircraft and they are purely CNS/ATM-based and our customers are seeking them to get to the next level of functionality.”
In China, due to the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s (CAAC) 2012 commitment to an aircraft Head-Up Display (HUD) mandate, Chinese operators are required to retrofit their aircraft with HUD systems which display critical flight data on a glass screen in front of pilots. CAAC’s mandate has three phases, compelling airlines to equip 10 percent of their fleet with HUDs by 2015, 50 percent by 2020 and finally 100 percent of their fleet must be HUD-equipped by 2025.
Thales is the sole supplier of these displays for the entire Airbus aircraft family, from the A318 to the company’s latest model, the A350 XWB. CAAC is making HUD technology a priority for its airlines in order to improve safety and efficiency, Daniel Malka vice president in charge of avionics services at Thales, told Avionics Magazine. “In China, you have more and more aircraft flying. They have a lot of difficulties managing the increasing number of flights into China. The airlines that have the HUDs installed, they will benefit from improved situational awareness and safety,” Malka says. “Beijing, for example, has one of the world’s most congested airports, causing very significant delays. I can remember one time having to wait four hours on the aircraft for our flight to leave; and these delays are caused by the significant growth in the number of flights they’ve experienced recently. The CAAC is very concerned with improving that, so they started to ask for this head-up display installation, because one of the ways that you can safely get more aircraft into the airspace is by improving pilot perception and situational awareness with that technology.”
The interest seems to expand beyond China and across all airspace, however, with the results of our cockpit display survey showing that nearly 50 percent of Avionics Magazine readers are interested in upgrading their aircraft with HUD technology.
Regarding cockpit display innovation, one thing is clear: The next generation of cockpit displays will be touchscreen, and they will mimic some of the pinching, pulling and swiping mechanisms that have become increasingly popular in consumer electronics, such as the iPhone and iPad. In the military world, the F-35 fifth generation fighter jet features infrared touchscreen technology, which Barco indicates is actually the previous version of its current touchscreen display product line. As more functionality is incorporated into touchscreen displays, manufacturers want to prevent pilots from inadvertently bumping a touchscreen and making a costly erroneous input at 30,000 feet.
“The use of adaptive force sensing basically mitigates the problem of inadvertent touches,” Kristof Vierin, vice president of aerospace and defense sales at Barco tells Avionics Magazine. “One of the issues with pilots in a cockpit is that they might be going over a screen and inadvertently touching it and thus activating functions which they did not want to activate. That’s why we have implemented adaptive force sensing onto our latest LCD displays. This allows a system integrator or an application developer to split up the screen into adaptable touch zones, where for each different zone you can re-program the threshold dynamically at which the touch is recognized.”
CMC is also working new capabilities into its latest line of smart display products, which also feature touchscreen capability. “Our smart display approach at large for CMC is new,” says Bouliane. “This new approach is based on multi-core processors, next generation graphics along with lots of memory and many features that are targeted at answering questions such as how do we host our Flight Management System (FMS) in a smart display? How do we host radio management in our displays? How do we do a better job of hosting a digital map in our display? We have active proposals right now that really go to the next level of interactivity between flight management, digital maps, [Terrain Awareness and Warning System] TAWS, [Helicopter Terrain Awareness and Warning System] HTAWS and wrapping that together into something more intuitive.”
Currently, CMC’s approach to developing smart displays is based on ARINC 653, a specification that allows companies to develop cockpit display application software independently of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) operating system. “ARINC 653 is an important element and will continue to be for our displays,” says Boulaine. “The operating system we put in our product, and the one that goes in Barco’s product is ARINC 653-based. The middleware we are developing is 653 and all of the software applications that CMC has are being re-deployed in ARINC 653 environments. By providing a platform that is ARINC 653-based, it’s partitioned and so on and allows the customer to load their application on it and complete the certification process.”
While CMC is focused on an ARINC 653-based cockpit display systems, they are also in discussions regarding ARINC 661-based displays. ARINC 661 is an avionics software display standard that has been in existence and evolving for nearly 15 years, updated a total of five times, with a sixth update expected in 2016. Chad Weldon, a senior engineering manager at Rockwell Collins and chair of the ARINC Cockpit Display Systems Subcommittee, tells Avionics Magazine the next update will continue establishing the standard by which CDS technology can be expanded and evolved in the future.
“We have a widget proposal we are looking at for some three dimensional projection,” says Weldon, adding that the committee will look to publish a draft of Supplement 6 to ARINC 661 at their annual meeting in March. “We have gone in and we’ve added some specific widgets for some touch features. One is a generic touch, recognition widget where it’s going to report that the screen is being touched, it’s almost like getting the data from the touchscreen itself. And the second single widget is a gesturing widget, where it lets the server interpret the touch interactions and break it down to a higher level gesture and send the gesture and related data to the application to give you some consistency between apps in terms of how they react to gestures. So these more advanced touchscreen displays [and] the ability to further manipulate the information presented to the pilot on the display, these are some of the things you can expect to see in future flight deck functionality.”
You"ll find no touch screens in Star Wars: The Last Jedi—not even when you can watch it at home next month (March 13 for digital, two weeks later for physical). Same goes for mice and keyboards. They"re all too familiar, too of-this-world, to appear in a galaxy so far, far away. What you’ll find instead are interface displays, and lots of them. Whether in an X-wing"s cockpit or the bridge of a Star Destroyer, every display in The Last Jedi exists to support the story—to provide a graphical complement to the film"s action and dialogue.
And it started with the film’s director. “Whenever possible, Rian [Johnson] wanted us to use practical graphics to enforce the narrative,” says creative director Andrew Booth, who oversaw the creation of TLJ’s assorted instrument clusters, targeting systems, medical readouts, and tactical displays. “It would actually appear in the script that you look at a screen and gain a deeper understanding of what’s happening. The challenge was always, what can we do in-camera to create something that feels real and believable?”
What"s impressive about the interfaces in The Last Jedi is that they feel believable not just to the audience, but to the film"s dramatis personae. In the real world, designers design for one person: the user. But creatives like Booth—whose design agency, BLIND LTD, has been behind the look and feel of some of this century’s biggest blockbusters, including every Star Wars film from TFA onward—designed the practical displays in The Last Jedi with at least three groups of people in mind: the characters, the actors depicting those characters, and the folks watching along in theaters.
Consider the film’s opening scene, in which (fair warning: plot points and spoilers from here on out) Commander Poe Dameron calls General Hux. The point of Poe"s call is to buy time; he"s charging the engines on his X-wing so he can stage a surprise attack on the First Order Dreadnought that’s poised to obliterate his Resistance buddies planetside. It’s a plan the audience comes to understand when the camera cuts to a display inside Poe’s starfighter that shows the status of his boosters.
The inside of Poe"s X-wing. The top display depicts the Dreadnaught tower Poe attacks at the beginning of the film; the middle one shows the status bar for his X-wing’s engines; and the bottom one, which is all wonky, visualizes his spaceship’s damaged targeting system.LUCASFILM LTD./BLIND LTD.
“For us, that’s a perfect piece of storytelling,” Booth says. “Now you’ve got exposition, drama, and tension all wrapped up in this close-up of a progress bar.” And because it’s a practical effect, that tension is experienced by audience, actor, and character alike. In fact, every single display in Poe’s cockpit pulls triple duty: The top one depicts the tower Poe is attacking; the middle one shows the status bar for his X-wing’s engines; and the bottom one, which is all wonky, visualizes his spaceship’s damaged targeting system, which BB-8 spends much of the sequence trying to repair.
Similar details abound inside the spacecraft from Canto Bight, the opulent casino city. The graphics aboard the ship that DJ and BB-8 steal are shiny. Slinky. Sumptuous. A striking contrast to the First Order"s stark, militaristic vibes and the ragtag aesthetics of the Resistance. "This was us trying to evoke a different world," Booth says.
But look closely, and you’ll see that the screens inside the shuttle are loaded with details. Crait’s topography, the blast door separating the Resistance from the First Order, the line of AT-ATs—they"re all depicted on screens, often for the briefest of moments. "It gives you an idea of the level of detail that we put into these interfaces," Booth says. "It"s one of the things we pride ourselves on: You don’t necessarily always see it, but you sure as hell feel it.”
China"s first 6th-generation flexible AMOLED display screen production line, built by domestic leading screen maker BOE Technology, was put into operation in Chengdu, Sichuan province, in May, CNR reported.
AMOLED displays, physically flexible with a fast response, high contrast and wide visual angles, are increasingly gaining applications in consumer electronics such as OLED TVs, tablets, smart wearable devices and especially smartphones.
This production line, having a designed capacity of 48,000 glass substrates (1850mm by 1500mm) per month, is expected to ship at least 90 million high-end AMOLED display screens per year and realize an annual output value exceeding 30 billion yuan.
In addition, LG Display has nearly 8 percent of the market. Most of its small to medium-sized AMOLED displays are made in its 4.5-generation production line, which has a capacity of 14,000 substrates per month.
BOE"S smartphone LCD, tablet LCD and laptop LCD shipments topped the global market in this year"s first quarter. Besides the production line in Chengdu, it will start building another 6th-generation AMOLED production line in Mianyang, Sichuan province, and achieve mass production by 2020.
Domestic screen makers such as Tianma Micro-electronics and Shenzhen China Star Optoelectronics Technology are also enhancing their presence in the OLED industry.
Many calculations have gone into the museum"s makeover, which won"t be finished until 2025. Expect to see high-tech improvements - including plenty of screens to touch - along with fun facts about the people who contributed to aviation and space history. Here are five cool objects and experiences you won"t want to miss:
At the far west end of the museum soars this sleek jet. "It even looks fast standing still," said Jeremy Kinney, associate director for research and curatorial affairs. Eight world records stenciled on its nose belong to Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran, the first female pilot to break the sound barrier. From the 1930s to the 1960s, she racked up more than 200 records for speed, altitude and distance. She also promoted her cosmetics brand, Wings to Beauty. Her flight suit is on display nearby in the Nation of Speed gallery, devoted to America"s love of vehicles. Cochran would have liked "Race Against the Machines," a station that calculates how quickly visitors run in place.
The only way this orange-and-silver spacecraft loaded with laser cannons and proton torpedo launchers could ever take flight is with movie magic. Featured in the 2019 film "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," the prop blends authentic details, such as engines and a cockpit, with fantastical ones. Can you spot the droid perched in the co-pilot"s seat? Sci-fi fans will also want to hunt for Mr. Spock"s pointy ears from "Star Trek," donated by the family of the late actor Leonard Nimoy.
Problem: Baby whooping cranes born in captivity needed to learn to migrate a 1,200-mile route from Wisconsin to Florida. Solution: Teach the endangered birds to follow an ultralight aircraft. The successful mission was part of Operation Migration, featured in the We All Fly gallery. The display also includes an example of a bird costume worn by the pilot and a loudspeaker that played adult crane sounds during the flight. (The goal was to persuade the babies to bond with the plane, not people.) A nearby simulator teaches how to "fly" a similar aircraft.
You"ll feel like you"re zigzagging through the solar system in the Exploring the Planets gallery, where a pair of curved screens displays detailed digital images based on evidence gathered by probes and rovers. Fact bubbles about these strange environments pop up to explain, for instance, that someone hopping two inches off the ground on Earth would completely jump off Comet 67P. It"s a cool way to showcase some of the latest findings from experts, Weitekamp said. "These scientists know these planets as places, like you know your neighborhood, and you know where there"s a good sledding hill," she said. (Don"t expect to go sledding on Venus, which is 880 degrees Fahrenheit.)