Heads-Up Display announced by GRT Avionics

[Greg_Toman]

GRT Avionics is introducing the GRT Vision wearable Heads-Up Display (HUD) at Airventure 2015. President Greg Toman has been intensely involved with the development of this system that originally was inspired by the needs of agricultural pilots. Upon his first flight with the BT-200 Android smart glasses manufactured by Epson, it was clear to Greg that this is a giant step forward in instrumentation.

"Even with my previous background developing military fighter system around a heads-up display, where the benefits of such a display are well known, I was amazed to see what it means to actually fly with one. This will change general aviation. The instrument panel is quickly going to become nothing more than a backup to a wearable HUD."

GRT Avionics has developed the necessary software, and has become a re-seller of the Epson smart glasses. "We are not limiting our app to just the BT-200, and in fact have written it to make it quickly adaptable to future smart glasses. It is clear that this technology is perfect for aviation, is amazingly economical, and has reached the point where it meets the practical needs of the pilot, and is only going to get better."

Introductory pricing of $750 for the glasses and software have been announced for Airventure, with a 15-day no-risk return policy. Glasses can be fitted with prescription lenses, and include sunglass filters for daytime flying.

Click for GRT Avionics Web Page


Actual photo take through the Epson BT-200 glasses from the right seat of RV-6A N78PP. The glasses have proven to be usable under all lighting conditions, including full sunlight. (Photo was taken with development software that was not driving the flight path marker and wind indicator.)


Another early development photo. Although the flight path marker is not functioning in this photo, this photo shows the benefit of seeing the runway and instrument data at the same time. Not shown is a vertical bar graph that pop up when passing over the end of the runway that shows the runway remaining. Instrumentation, like runway remaining, were useless with heads-down displays because it was nearly impossible to look at it, and doing so could compromise control of the airplane on the landing roll-out. This is not the case with a heads-up display.

Aerobatics with wearable HUD technology will be unthinkable after having flown with them. This shouldn't be surprising, as military fighter pilots have relied on this for more than 40 years. Now it is our turn.

[rmartingt]

Oooooooh, shiny!

How does the HUD display stabilize WRT the pilot's head movement?

[Canadian_JOY]

I've been saying for two or three years now that the next revolution in Experimental avionics was going to be the HUD. Congratulations to Greg and team for making it a reality.

Since my new HX is now in shipment from GRT, let's talk about what's required to make these fancy glasses work. Bluetooth adapter plugged into one of the HX's USB ports - that part seems fairly obvious. What else is needed?

Gotta love the HX's ability to support external Android devices! This is just the beginning, I'm sure.

[David Paule]

Well, what I'd like would be a Mini-EMS.

Dave

[bkthomps]

Garmin? What say ye?

[BobTurner]

Originally Posted by rmartingt

Oooooooh, shiny!

How does the HUD display stabilize WRT the pilot's head movement?

It most likely does not. Notice there is no 'synthetic vision' stuff displayed, just the conventional instruments. Any runways have to been seen visually. Now, if you wear their infrared glasses on top of the HUD glasses, ...

[BobTurner]

So will someone at Osh wander down to GRT and furnish a pirep?

[erikpmort]

Looks cool but realistically I don't even want to see all my instrumentation at all times. Sometimes I'm just vfr buzzing and don't look down much. But I think it's cool either way. And yes I want a mini ems too

[acam37]

I wonder if it can be incorporated into a Gentex flight helmet visor?

[Greg_Toman]

Thanks for the posts and questions.

The GRT Vision app does not attempt to account for the pilots head position, so if you tilt your head, the images will tilt with your head. In flying with it, I didn't find that I tilted my head much, although I noticed in turns I did tilt opposite the turn a little. This is of no significance because the horizon displayed on the glasses has its own reference.

The development of the glasses fit in perfectly with our past planning and the future growth planning we have built into our EFIS systems. Having already developed the blue-tooth link to our app, and the experience with developing software on Android set us up perfectly for developing the wearable HUD. All GRT EFIS systems that have an "X" in their name (Sport SX, HX, HXr, Mini-X) can support the glasses, as can the mini-AP.

Our first release of software will not include engine data, but engine power (RPM and manifold pressure) will be added within a couple weeks or less. There are other features that will be added in the coming weeks also.

Engine monitoring has been added to the Mini now as part of a software upgrade package.

Flying with the glasses the first time was an unusual experience. I was unsure if I would feel comfortable taking off or landing with them, so I had planned to wait until I had another pilot with me. This was based on my impression of the glasses when I tried them at in the office (not impressive to me, or any co-workers), and in my car (intriguing that I could see data outside of the car, but the loss of peripheral vision made me uncomfortable when going through intersections).

When I first flew with the glasses, I started the engine with the glasses on, and found this simple. I could easily look under the glasses, or through them. Taxi was also simple, and I could see the images while taxiing into the sun. Wow! The loss of peripheral vision had no impact (I think that view might be blocked by my RV-6A wing anyway.) . So I took off. Again, no problem, and having data out the window just drew my attention out there.

On the flight home, I let my step-daughter try the glasses, and she liked them also. She is a 19-year old non-pilot who loves to fly, and her comment was, "when are you going to put navigation data on them?" Obviously she, like me, found that once the you saw data outside, you lost interest in looking back inside the airplane. It was natural to look on the glasses for everything, and it seems strange that is where your brain expects to find it.

This strange affect came into play for me also. As it turned out, I felt completely comfortable landing with the glasses on, so I did. I found I naturally tipped my head back, moving the HUD images above the runway as I flared. The strange part came upon touchdown. I looked back to the HUD images to see how much runway remained. That was odd, because that data was not on the glasses. I wrote the app, so I should know, yet I was naturally looking for it because, for the first time in my life, I could get access to information while controlling the airplane on the ground at high speed.

Naturally I have now added the runway remaining feature. It activates on takeoff also. The ability to see information without looking down at your instrument panel is a game changer.


Greg Toman
GRT Avionics/Grand Rapids Technologies