Revolutionising the conduct of war. (Technology).

Advances in communications technology have brought about significant changes in the way war is conducted (see "On the 'Net" in this issue), but the no less dramatic advances in display technology are revolutionizing the way information is presented on land, at sea and in the air.

Indeed, whereas information presented in different formats can lead to overload and negate some of the benefits of communication, display technology promises to bring clarity to complex situations and help commanders to make the right decisions.

The benefits of improved displays are certain to ease the tasks of personnel all the way down the command chain, to the point where crews of the next generation of armoured fighting vehicles (AFV) will function in an environment much like that of a combat aircraft. Consequently, crew numbers will be substantially reduced, as automation together with display technology enables tasks to be shared, each crewmember being kept informed about the tactical situation in a way not previously possible.

The cathode ray tube (CRT) may still have a place as the display for TV and desktop computers but in the realm of defence it has had its day and is fast being ousted by the liquid crystal display (LCD). Continuously refined, the flat panel displays permitted by LCD technology are just beginning to be employed in the field and a huge industrial infrastructure is in place worldwide to support not just defence needs but the fast growing civil market as well.

It is the acceptance of LCD technology by the civil sector that is fuelling growth in its use, as well as volume production that helps to reduce costs. Rival flat panel systems have not benefited in this way, thus reinforcing the LCD's current market dominance. Field Emission Displays (FED) looked promising some five years ago but the manufacturing process is expensive' and series production in large sizes has not been successful. However, although other technologies will eventually replace LCDs, some hold the view that not all current developments perceived to be promising would reach quantity production.

C4ISR 

Of all examples of information overload, that effecting staff in command centres is surely the most critical. These days, fighting an enemy may not be the only matter that must be taken into consideration, as fleeing refugees choke roads or the need to co-ordinate naval and air support becomes evident. So the concept of command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (C4ISR), or variations on that theme, has stimulated many companies to develop appropriate display systems.

Using commercial off-the-shelf (Cots) components, General Dynamics C4 Systems offers a modular solution in the form of a tiled display array, which can be tailored to the size required, or the space available. RGB Spectrum employs a wall controller for its command and control centre display solution, which splits computer images into quadrants for display on an array of wall cubes. The company has teamed with Electrosonic to achieve high contrast and brightness rear projection images, which may also include analogue video.

By providing its expertise in information and computing power, Thales aims to become a major player in the C4ISR revolution, proposing back projection to provide a large display, while Panoram Technologies has developed a range of C4I solutions. The latter's PanoWall, measuring 9 x 20 feet, employs a two-projector stereographic display in which soft-edge blending technology is used to provide seamless and very bright displays.

At the smaller end of the size scale, Panoram's field deployable PV290 is a three-screen system that can be erected by two men in six minutes to provide a desktop tactical display. Panoram has also developed advanced integrated systems as an organic visual support technology, which is compatible with major computer platforms. This allows for inputs such as composite video, teleconferencing and satellite feeds.

Barco is a company that has long been a major supplier of display products, many of which bear the label of the prime contractor. Consequently, as a second or third tier supplier, it is apt to be little known to many users of its equipment. But having grown to become a major player in the display business since its foundation in 1934, Barco is now present in 26 countries around the world in the form of 50 subsidiaries or overseas branches. Indeed, although defence is an important market for the company, it is no less active in the medical and entertainment fields.

Consequently, C4I is but one sector of defence in which Barco plays an important role, and from its headquarters in Kortrijk, Belgium, Michael Forde directs marketing in this field. To meet the specific needs of C4I operators, Barco has developed a range of modular rugged flat LCD displays (MRFD) designed for applications that require graphics, video and other RGB data to be viewed on a single display.

These displays are available in 17-, 18- and 21.3-inch screen sizes, with resolutions up to 1600 x 1200. Although the company's flat panel display family ranges in size from 10.4-inch diagonal to 28-inch diagonal, Forde is confident that the MRFD range will become Barco's product core because it allows a flexible response to market demands.

Convinced that defence procurement agencies want available technology at an affordable price, Barco makes extensive use of Cots components to produce display workstations designed to meet difficult and harsh environmental conditions. To this end, the company has developed advanced bonding capabilities to protect the LCD against extreme temperature, shock, vibration, humidity and EMI conditions. In-house facilities provide thorough testing to military standards and ensure maximum reliability.

Simplifying Cockpit Workload

The days are long gone when the armed forces could rely upon the easy recruitment of personnel. Often trained pilots and other aircrew members are lured into the commercial world by the prospect of higher salaries, so to save personnel costs it is as important to aim for two-crew operation of military air transport aircraft, as it is for commercial airliners. Display technology is helping to achieve this aim, although many more benefits result from modernising military aircraft with new active matrix LCDs. These benefits include weight and space savings as well as much reduced maintenance demands.

Nowhere is the crossover from the civil sector to the defence arena more evident than it is on the flight decks of multi-engine aircraft. Indeed, the Rockwell Collins Flight2 cockpit display system features open Cots architecture that is scaleable to military rotary-wing, tanker/transport and combat aircraft.

While some 600 Boeing 707-based KC-135 tankers are being upgraded with Collins' flat panel multifunction displays, the common display system developed by Honeywell for Boeing's Next Generation 737 family, and featuring six multifunction LCDs, is to be retrofitted to the US Navy's fleet of 16 E-6B aircraft. Significant savings in Navy maintenance costs are anticipated, with a mean time between failure (MTBF) counted in thousands, rather than tens of hours. Moreover, the E-6B retrofit makes for a weight saving of more than 225 kg.

Needless to say, Barco supplies avionics such as cockpit head down displays, multi-function displays and control display and management systems to a number of primes including Honeywell, Thales, Boeing, Eurocopter and Raytheon. However, while demand for retrofit and new-built LCD -based avionics is growing apace, Barco is also active in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) field. In addition to participating in the American Predator and Shadow programmes, it was recently selected by STN Atlas to supply a substantial number of 18-inch MRFDs for the ground stations to be used in the German KZO UAV project. This calls for the use of high-end LCD displays to provide the necessary video performance.

Elbit Systems, Boeing, Israel Aircraft Industries, Northrop Grumman (incorporating Litton), Thales, Astronautics and Arnav Systems are among those that offer active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) `glass cockpits' for aircraft as diverse as the two-seat Enaer Pillan trainer and the Lockheed Martin P-3 maritime patrol aircraft.

While cockpit upgrades can help to give new life to ageing fighters such as the MiG-21 and F-4 Phantom, the fourth-generation Saab Gripen has already moved from 5 x 6-inch CRT multi-function displays, to 6 x 8-inch AMLCDs. Saab switched to LCD technology because the displays are lighter, take up less space and run at a much cooler temperature. It must be said that earlier problems of readability in bright sunlight or from oblique angles that plagued LCDs some ten years ago have been overcome. Thales, formerly Sextant Avionique, has played a major pioneering role in this respect.

Aircraft produced by the former Soviet Union represent an enormous modernisation opportunity for which there is keen competition and BAE Systems is bidding to increase the effectiveness of the Mi-24 Hind combat helicopter and to make it Nato compatible.

The 8 x 6-inch LCD display used in BAE Systems' Mi-24 avionics system upgrade demonstrator exhibited in several countries, is from Barco and judged to be perfectly adequate for that role. But displays tend to be an item for which the customer has a preference, so BAE Systems would meet a demand for change provided it met performance requirements. An additional complication considered by the company is whether the Mi-24 display should be `smart' or `dumb', taking the view that for a mission payload system dumb is better, for both technical and programmatic reasons. However, if an EFIS format is required then it would propose a smart display that can also accept a video input from the on-board mission computer.

Vetronics

Flat panel displays offering a complete visualization solution for the commander, driver and any other crewmember in an AFV are leading to the development of control positions not unlike those of a combat aircraft's cockpit. Much research and development has gone into Vetronics display systems and, with no future main battle tank programmes currently underway in Western countries, upgrades are likely to become necessary to ensure longer life for existing AFVs.

Shown by the US Army's Tank-Automotive RD&E Center at this year's Eurosatory exhibition and for the first time outside the USA, an advanced technology demonstration (ATD) shows how displays can influence future AFV operation. The ATD will demonstrate a multi-mission capable two-man crew station concept. A vetronics technology test bed (VTT) consisting of an M2A0 Bradley IFV retrofitted with drive-by-wire technologies and two identical crew stations will be used to prove the new concept. Operating through indirect views using an array of LCD displays, the VTT crew will be enabled to conduct combat and scout missions.

The Finders system developed by Giat for the real-time acquisition, processing, distribution and display of information in AFVs makes use of LCD flat panel displays to show tactical and navigation information. The displays are also used to distribute information between vehicles and from the command post.

Given the limited space in most AFV crew compartments, the size of display is less important than clarity. So Ultra Electronics selected the 10-inch flat panel Barco Vector LCD display to equip three crew stations in the British engineer tank system. The LCD panels will be linked to the Ultra indirect vision system to provide a complete solution to commander, driver and observer needs.

The Barco Vector display system combines video camera images with a standard text on-screen display and graphics overlay created by a powerful symbol generator. To cater to the increased reliance upon indirect viewing systems, Barco developed a multi-head control box, which can control up to four panel displays through a single cable.

Simulation is the Driver

The technology for simulation displays is possibly the most demanding in that it sets out to deceive the viewer into believing that was is seen is `real'. Although realistic visuals are part of a total simulation package that may include aural and motion inputs, what is seen is most

important to the brain. It is possible for aircrew to become airsick in some situations in which there is neither motion nor aural simulation, but where the eyes are totally deceived.

If the second and third tier suppliers in other display fields may be unknown to the user (or even the buyer), many companies that contribute to simulator visual systems are known only to major suppliers such as Evans & Sutherland and CAE. Which is a pity because some of the most innovative developments come from companies whose name never appears on the simulator.

Used for the development of equipment and mission rehearsal, aircraft and vehicle simulators need the highest levels of fidelity and this has encouraged the development of "smart" displays. Quantum 3D pioneered the concept of 3D in simulation in order to improve situational awareness, although this is certain to progress beyond the training sphere into battlefield applications. For example, improved navigation and the integration of synthetic terrain with sensor data will lead to highway in the sky (Hits) displays for pilots and similar benefits to Vetronics users in AFVs.

Quantum 3D is working with Boeing, Honeywell, Kaiser Electronics, General Dynamics, United Defense and others in the application of its expertise to bring about the dual use of existing displays. The visuals used in the new Combined Arms Tactical Trainer supplied to the British Army by Lockheed Martin are based on Quantum 3D technology, but Ross Smith, the latter's vice-president of sales, marketing and business development, is confident that a display retrofit market will soon open up for vehicle upgrades.

"They will not want to change the displays, rather their capability," he declared. Just as Hits will provide pilots with visual warnings of Sam sites and enemy radar, so too Vetronics-equipped vehicles will add threat projection to moving map displays. Smith expects Hits to become a feature of cockpit displays within the next couple of years, while by merging GPS/INS inputs with flir images, crews will be given a long view in zero visibility.

Concurrent Computer is another major supplier to the simulation industry, its NightStar graphical tools allowing users to debug, monitor, schedule and analyse real-time applications. Consequently, its expertise is also to be found on many aircraft flight simulators around the world.

Some of the most demanding simulator visuals call for 360[degrees] displays and CRT technology is still used effectively in the Prodas display developed by Seos Displays for ship bridge simulators. The CompactView X10 digital geometry corrected projector developed in Norway by 3D Perception provides an alternative solution, while Barco's Auto-Align digital multi-channel camera alignment system used with its 900-series CRT projectors is yet another example of high-end technology meeting demanding requirements.

Future Developments

While flat panel LCD displays have all but ousted CRTs as the preferred option, brighter, sharper and thinner displays are claimed for technology pioneered by Eastman Kodak in the form of organic light-emitting diodes (Oled). It is said that light-emitting polymer Oleds are challenging the flat-panel LCD industry but some problems must be overcome before this challenge becomes serious.

For example, the thin-film screens are difficult to produce and so far have only a short life before failure. Nevertheless, many companies around the world are conducting R&D into Oled technology because it has proved to produce full-colour images that are far more vivid than that provided by LCDs. Moreover, higher resolution, improved contrast and wider viewing angles are other virtues claimed for Oleds. However, the 1000-hour maximum MTBF for active-matrix Oled displays compares most unfavourably with the 20,000-hour mean time between failures of the LCD.

Yet, at 1.4 mm thick an Oled display used in avionics could make for important weight savings in cockpits, quite apart from gains in picture quality. Some market analysts predict that the Oled market will be worth $ 2.8 billion by 2007 but the driver will be consumer electronics in the form of TV, cell phones and hand-held GPS receivers. As so often happens today, the defence industry will gain from the pioneering work in the civil sector.

Plasma display panels are perceived to have potential for large-screen use but are very expensive and apt to be very hot. However, the bigger the display the easier it is to cool and the technology has progressed beyond the monochrome stage. Nevertheless image quality needs to be improved.

L-3's Cots Solution to Vetronics Needs

L-3's Interstate Electronics (IEC) subsidiary has produced a new video display terminal (VDT) that draws on commercial off-the-shelf (Cots) sub-assemblies to provide an affordable, ruggedised but lightweight solution to meet AFV needs on the battlefield. It combines a highly capable integrated computer and display unit with a video input multi-function role. Weighing in at just over eight kilograms, the VDS utilises the latest AMLCD technology to provide a sunlight-readable display. Additional functions include up to four RS-170 video inputs for overlay video, a high-resolution infrared touch screen and up to 28 user-defined illuminated bezel switches.

All displays are provided with 100 per cent environmental stress screening and the VDS has an MTBF of 10,000 hours. Resistant to high shock and vibration, the new unit meets steam and water jet wash down requirements.