Story ID: 622EBACE17
Garmin Enters Head-up Display Market
By: Matt Thurber
Caption: Garmin's new head-up display offers unique features, including "intelligent dimming" and Garmin's SurfaceWatch alerts. 
Word Count: 432

Garmin unveiled its first foray into the head-up display (HUD) market last month: the GHD 2100, which Textron has selected for the Cessna Citation Longitude super-midsize jet now in flight-test. The Longitude has a Garmin G5000 flight deck, and the GHD 2100 is installed in the prototype Longitude (the first flight-test article). 

The GHD 2100 is designed to fit into light, midsize and super-midsize business aircraft and consists of a single display unit with a self-contained projection system. The head-up display (HUD) offers a 30-degree-wide by 24-degree-vertical field of view. 

The GHD 2100 offers a “simplistic control interface” with “intelligent dimming, which automatically adapts to ambient light and allows pilots to focus on flying the aircraft.” The HUD also has a declutter mode.

Information displayed on the GHD 2100 is consistent with the Garmin display symbology and includes flight-critical primary flight display information, conformal attitude and flight path overlaying the real-world view outside the windshield, navigation and flight plan information, autopilot modes, master warning/caution annunciations and synthetic vision technology (SVT). “Because the synthetic vision image replicates what the pilot would see outside the cockpit on a clear day, pilots can more easily transition from flying with the GHD to the flight display or outside view,” according to Garmin.

Garmin’s SurfaceWatch is integrated on the GHD 2100, and it uses performance data entered into the Garmin avionics before takeoff to provide visual and aural cues to warn pilots about taking off or landing on the wrong runway or a taxiway or a runway that is too short. 

Also displayed on the GHD 2100 is a flight path marker and flight path-based flight director. The flight path marker provides speed offset and velocity cue, according to Garmin, “allowing for precise energy management.” 

Garmin is planning to add options to the GHD 2100 such as displaying imagery from external cameras, such as infrared-based enhanced vision systems (EVS), as well as blended EVS and SVT to deliver a combined vision system. 

“The GHD also allows the operator to pursue Special Authorization Category I (Cat I), as well as Special Authorization Category II (Cat II) ILS approach minimums,” Garmin noted. 

“Industry studies indicate that flying with a HUD is safer in reduced visibility, deteriorating weather conditions and in challenging environments,” said Carl Wolf, Garmin vice president of aviation sales and marketing. “We’ve worked hard to harmonize the GHD and Garmin’s integrated flight decks so pilots are provided with a seamless in-flight experience throughout the cockpit.”

 
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