Test results from Boeing’s EcoDemonstrator program have convinced the company to feature touchscreen displays in the cockpit of the new 777X airliner, BCA vice president of product development Mike Sinnett revealed during a pre-Farnborough briefing on developing technologies at the company’s Seattle-area offices. The 777X’s cockpit display provider, Rockwell Collins, worked with Boeing on the technology on the EcoDemonstrator. However, Boeing continues to “define requirements” and expects to sign a contract with a supplier of the touchscreens later this summer.
Sinnett called touchscreens “a really great example of trying to understand what the [customer] requirements are and convey those requirements in a flight deck design.” But despite the seeming ubiquity of the technology in everyday computing devices, aerospace engineers still must consider technological hurdles specific to airplane design. Sinnett explained that although no requirements exist that “drive” the use of the touchscreen, the challenge for engineers centers on simultaneously maintaining standards associated with image quality, chromaticity and off-axis viewing angles.
“The requirements that drive the viewability of the display and the requirements that allow for good touch in some cases are mutually exclusive,” said Sinnett. “For example, the best touchscreens are the ones where if you get a fingerprint on them you can wipe it off really easily. One of the problems with devices that clean so easily is that there’s a lot of reflectivity in those devices.”
Manufacturers must adhere to strict anti-reflectivity standards written to ensure pilots can read the displays without distraction from seeing reflections of their white shirts, for example. The technology continues to improve, however, said Sinnett, who cited Boeing’s introduction of the technology in the electronic flight bag on the 787.
“But in that case you’ve got touch on the outboard displays and you don’t have touch on the inboard displays,” said Sinnett. “So we did enough work on the EcoDemonstrator that we felt comfortable enough with where the technology has gone that we’re going to be introducing it on the 777X.”
Sinnett explained that using the EcoDemonstrator as a vehicle “to work through the requirements” will eventually allow for the use of touchscreens with other operationally approved applications not necessarily certified as part of the airplane’s basic type certification. “That is not something that is committed yet for an airplane,” said Sinnett. “But we’re working the technology in the background, both on the human interface and on the applications themselves so that we can eventually deploy them.”
Examples of touchscreen-activated applications that flight crews now use on their personal devices that could migrate to a cockpit display include flight planning and real-time weather updates, said Sinnett.
