ASHBURN, Va., 21 April 2012. Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions (CWCDS), a business group of Curtiss-Wright Controls, has announced the availability of a new advanced performance option that enhances night flying and daylight display readability on a member of its Skyquest family of rugged displays for deployed airborne vehicles. CWCDS now offers a new dual backlight variant of its rugged Skyquest AVDU-2655 10.4” LED display. The new dual backlight option provides a very high brightness, full color image readable in direct sunlight during daytime operations, and with the use of a switch, a fully filtered display for NVG operations. This performance enhancement makes the AVDU-2655 display useful for defense, aerospace and law enforcement night flying applications where Night Vision Goggles (NVG) are required. The AVDU-2655, initially introduced to the market in 2010, has been deployed in numerous aerial vehicles. The display comes standardly equipped with touchscreen control, two high definition (HD) inputs, multiple analog inputs, and a serial interface to communicate with external devices such as moving maps. Traditional NVG filtering is achieved by fitting a filter to the full display area. This “bolt-on” filter approach dims the image and adds an undesirable green tint that is visible in both daytime and nighttime operations. CWCDS’s dual LED backlit Skyquest displays eliminate the filter from the front of the screen. Instead, the filtering occurs in the backlight located behind the LCD. A simple toggle switch enables the selection of either white daylight LEDs or green NVG-filtered LEDs which are integrated in the backlight within the display. This approach provides the user with control over the type of light emitted from the screen. The result is a very high brightness, full color image readable in direct sunlight during daytime operations and a fully filtered display for NVG operations.
Dual LED backlit Skyquest displays provide a number of advantages over older cathode tube technology. Because they use solid state devices instead of glass tubes, the LED displays are more rugged because potential issues associated with the mounting of glass tubes and shock breakage are eliminated. Also, LED displays, which offer highly precise brightness control, enable the system integrator to create different lighting regimes for different application areas.
The AVDU-2655 provides multiple video inputs including HD-SDI, composite video, S-Video (Y/C), RGB Video or STANAG 3350/B/C, providing compatibility with most brands of stabilized airborne camera systems and mapping systems.
