FARNBOROUGH, England, 17 July 2014. Engineers in GE Aviation and the Barco Defence & Aerospace division are jointly developing a new family of open system helicopter cockpit displays, according to a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
“This collaboration builds upon our experience with Barco in this sector and our successful delivery of cockpit display systems for the UK Wildcat, Merlin and International AW159 helicopter display systems,” affirms Alan Caslavka, president of Avionics & Digital Systems for GE Aviation. “We will be able to provide customers with the most advanced flight deck with embedded applications while driving efficiency and reducing through life cost.”
Barco’s cockpit display design and manufacturing capability will combine with GE Aviation expertise in thermal management, graphics processing, application development, and computing to create a low-profile, passively cooled cockpit display system. The solution will deliver primary display system functionality and be capable of hosting third-party applications within an open system environment.
This collaboration combines the companies’ respective investments in new technology with their experience in delivering integrated cockpit display systems, open architecture ARINC 653 computing platforms, and expertise in the design and production of high-quality cockpit displays for a new generation of flexible display and computing products.
It is anticipated that the products will be integrated with an open suite of development and integration tools enabling aircraft prime contractors and application providers to collaborate in customising functionality and optimising aircraft performance. The solutions are intended to host existing applications from the two companies and be compatible with industry standard ARINC 653 and Barco’s MOSArt application interfaces.
“Barco is delighted to be working with GE Aviation on this innovation and to continue their fruitful co-operation in this area,” says Dave Scott, senior vice president, Barco NV; general manager, Defence & Aerospace Division.
