A revolution has begun. Flight deck displays design is about to take a giant leap forward. NextGen Avionics is bringing Dumb Display technology to the forefront of the avionics world. Smart Displays are a thing of the past. NextGen’s Flight Display Computer and Dumb Display modular approach will drastically change and improve the industry.
NextGen’s Flight Display Computer (FDC) is a modular component that integrates into the avionics of your aircraft. Different I/O are modular add-on cards within the FDC. This modular FDC approach is easy to upgrade when needing to match new FAA mandates or any other industry breakthrough.
Smart Displays have followed a questionable design choice—attaching all the electronics to the back of a display glass that often has a short life cycle. NextGen’s approach begins by upgrading to a larger display glass which is simply upgraded via Flight Display Computer installation.
1 Display glass is a separate component
2 Upgrading to bigger and\or newer glass size requires minimal DO-160 testing
3 Adding new interfaces from new customers or new mandates is accomplished via the Flight Display Computer
4 Flight deck requires minor changes and typically removal of wiring for smart displays
5 Upgrade of entire flight deck requires only new glass with a cost of less than $10K per display
1 Display glass is always attached to smart components
2 Glass resizing and any I/O changes require DO-178, DO-254, and DO-160 re-certifications.
3 Glass obsolescence confounds long lifecycle support
4 Adding new interfaces requires either new I/O or separate data processing unit
5 Upgrading requires a major and costly overhaul to the Flight deck design and wiring—the cost of each display being 8-12 times that of the glass alone.
NextGen’s engineering team has completed many DO-178 and DO-254 projects working with certification authorities worldwide and can streamline a certification effort at minimal cost. Combined with NextGen’s modular approach, flight displays’ life expectancies are dramatically increased while cost of ownership is drastically reduced.
