Story ID: 510
Portable Headset-mounted PilotVision Display Debuts
By: James Wynbrandt
Caption: Vision Products is displaying the head-wearable PilotVision, which offers a high-resolution monocular display.
Word Count: 290
Vision Products recently debuted PilotVision—a headset-mounted augmented reality display to the commercial market. The device costs $27,000 and serves as a portable head-up or head-wearable display. The high-resolution (1920 by 1200 pixels) monocular system provides a 62-degree diagonal field of view with minimal obscuration, offering overlays that show groundspeed, altitude, attitude, and terrain information.

Rather than relying on flight deck input, PilotVision’s current iteration is fed by a self-contained, battery-powered control unit with an integrated Samsung S8 smartphone and AHRS unit, augmenting and serving as a backup for panel instrumentation. Display data is provided by the iFly GPS EFB app, which includes IFR and VFR charts, georeferenced approach charts,  synthetic vision, ADS-B receiver support, wind-optimized flight planning, fuel prices, and more.

According to Vision Products business development director Ben Mall, the unit could easily be adapted to accommodate input from EFB apps that have HDMI output. Moreover, PilotVision could also take data directly from cockpit avionics, while eliminating the control and AHRS components and halving the cost of the unit, he said.

The launch customer for PilotVision is the U.S. Navy, which is evaluating a unit, said Mall.

Vision Products showed off  PilotVision during the recent NBAA-BACE, marking its first appearance in a public forum, and attendee reaction was “very positive until we get to price, which we expected,” Mall said.

Campbell, California-based Vision Products is now “looking into” adapting the unit for the proprietary systems of other EFBs, in addition to investigating linking the portable system directly to panel avionics and the certification requirements that would entail.
, full_html