Guy Norris/LOS ANGELES
Flitting like shadows from between the trees, wandering deer slowly cross the lonely country road in the night. Around a curve, a Cadillac approaches, its tired driver anxious to get home. Although she has highbeam lights selected, the deer are invisible.
Just when disaster seems certain, the grille-mounted infrared (IR) camera system picks out the bright thermal images of the animals and projects the picture on a windshield mounted head-up display (HUD). In an instant, she sees the danger and smoothly brakes to a halt, allowing the deer to safely cross the road and disappear into the darkness.
This scene is familiar to US television audiences as an advertisement for Cadillac's Night Vision system - a combined passive IR camera and non-conformal HUD. It is attracting interest from companies such as Honeywell, which sees the spread of such technology into the automotive industry as a positive move with implications for aerospace and the pace of advanced flightdeck developments.
Lower costs
"We are excited about things like that," says Honeywell Aerospace Electronics Systems' new business pursuits manager, Larry Clark. He believes that HUDs in cars and the spread of laptop computers and related technology will promote lower costs for high-end aerospace users. "We go to events like Comdex [the world's largest computer show] and learn what is out there. We get things like new trackballs, put them in our simulator and ask pilots if they like the feel of them.."
Honeywell is gathering ideas for flightdeck concepts that will build on breakthroughs established initially with its VIA (versatile integrated avionics) 2000 suite for airliners and its even more advanced Primus Epic system for business and regional aircraft. The two are intimately connected: the basis for Epic is the cabinet-based modular design of the Aircraft Information Management (AIMS) system which formed the basis for the VIA system, while the aircraft-wide network concept is akin to the Primus 2000 system. To go with the success of VIA in Boeing's 717, Next Generation 737, 777 and MD-10, Epic has won competitions on the Hawker Horizon, Cessna Citation Sovereign, Agusta Bell AB139, EmbraerRJ-170/190 and Fairchild 728/928JET.
Key technical building blocks include the company's Digital Engine Operating System which allows different aircraft functions to run simultaneously on the same processor, and the bi-directional Avionics Standard Communication Bus (ASCB), which provides a throughput equivalent of 100 ARINC 429 buses. The ASCB, in turn, is a key component of the Virtual Backplane Network, an open architecture feature which lies at Epic's heart.
In recognition of the new technology's broader impact on the operation of the aircraft, Honeywell is holding brainstorming sessions with future planners and think-tank specialists from the US Federal Aviation Administration, NASA, airlines and aircraft manufacturers as well as pilots and maintenance people.
Information management
The result is the blurring of distinctions between the future flightdeck requirements of air transport and other users, such as business aviation. "There is some activity with the major airlines looking at Primus Epic-type architecture rather than the traditional ARINC base. In many cases, ARINC requirements are like military specifications and almost slow things down - particularly in areas like datalinking of weather information," says Clark. "The airlines are anxious to see what an Epic-based solution would look like in terms of support and costs. So far, the results are positive."
This is based partly on levels of new technology in the advanced flightdeck architectures in service, as well as Primus Epic. The knock-on effect has been to drive high levels of built-in test and basic reliability into the Epic architecture.
"Epic allowed a lot of new capabilities such as flat panel displays, greater processing power and a lot more memory," says Clark. Honeywell's problem is knowing what to do with all this technology, and when to stop. "We have to almost throttle ourselves back sometimes and say: 'is this the best way to do it?' It is easy to overwhelm the pilot. We ask them, would you like terrain information, and they say 'yes, I'd really like that!' Then we ask, what about uplinked weather, and they say "oh yes, great!' Then we say...what about both at the same time? That is the challenge," says Clark.
Honeywell is studying the best ways to use the new systems' power to reduce pilot workload without taking the pilot "out of the loop". This traditionally thorny issue is part of the discussions with the FAA, NASA and others such as Boeing which introduced a cursor control device on the 777 but held back from using the device for everything of which it is capable. "We are taking a similar approach," Clark adds.
Promising areas for Epic include aircraft-wide utility control and pilot workload reduction for tasks such as checklists. "It became obvious we could do it better with all the processing. We're still learning, but it's one of the exciting areas," says Clark. A typical idea would be a voice, or cursor, controlled command to "select taxi after landing configuration" and the system would automatically command the flaps to retract, transponder to switch off and so on. "When we suggest this, the old pilots say 'no way', but the young computer-orientated co-pilots say "oh yes, and could I have a drop-down window?' adds Clark.
Honeywell believes its "human-centred" cockpit design, with a choice of touch pad, joystick, or track ball options - together with on-screen "soft key" controls, provide a more intuitive feel for pilots. This, it hopes, will help make training easier as well as encourage crews to take greater advantage of the system's potential for tasks such as automated checklist actions.
With voice control and other options being studied, Honeywell is also eyeing head-up displays (HUD) for primary flight display. "If we could get the cost down, it opens up the possibility of doing a lot more with the head-down display," adds Clark. The company is studying small, laser projected, head-mounted HUDs developed by Microvision, as one option.
The result, believes Clark, will be a flightdeck in which the HUD is the primary flight display and a "very easy human interface". Crews will have a choice of voice, CCD or touchpad controls, while many tasks will be automated.
"Pilots will be at a higher level of management. Systems will be smart and anticipative, and they will even cross-check the pilot's action like any good co-pilot. We don't want the system to make the decision for the crew - but it will help them to make the right one," says Clark.
Source: Flight International