UK developer working on replacing heavy aircraft windows
with uber-light smartscreen panels to cut fuel consumption and slash air fares
It is a glimpse into the future that will inspire wonder in
some people but perhaps strike terror into the heart of the nervous flyer: a
windowless plane that nonetheless allows passengers to see what’s going on
outside, as well as checking their email and surfing the net.
In a vision of what the next generation of commercial
aircraft could look like in little more than a decade, windows would be
replaced by full-length screens allowing constant views of the world outside.
Passengers would be able to switch the view on and off according to their
preference, identify prominent sights by tapping the screen or even just surf
the internet.
The early-stage concept for the windowless plane, based on
technology used in mobile phones and televisions, hails from the Centre for
Process Innovation (CPI), an organisation with sites across north-east England
that works with companies to develop new products. It imagines how large, hi-definition,
ultra thin and lightweight displays could form the inside of the fuselage,
displaying images of the exterior from cameras mounted on the plane’s exterior.
But the real ambition echoes a constant quest in the
aviation industry: how to reduce weight, which would cut fuel consumption,
thereby bringing down fares. According to the CPI, for every 1% reduction in
the weight of an aircraft, there is a saving in fuel of 0.75%.
The idea came about after discussions about how printable
electronics, in which the centre specialises, could be used. “We had been
speaking to people in aerospace and we understood that there was this need to
take weight out of aircraft,” said Dr Jon Helliwell of the CPI. By putting
windows into a plane, the fuselage needed to be strengthened, he added, and by
omitting them in favour of walls of screens on panels, the fuselage would be
lighter.
“Follow the logical thought through. Let’s take all the
windows out – that’s what they do in cargo aircraft – what are the passengers going
to do? If you think about it, it’s only really the people that are sitting next
to windows that will suffer.”
These futuristic plans would involve screen panels
reflecting whatever view of the outside the passenger wanted, changing in
accordance with the direction of their eyes.
The screens would be made using organic light-emitting
diodes (OLEDs) – a combination of materials that give out their own light when
activated by electricity. The problems with the technology involve price and
their sensitivity to moisture, which means they are generally encased in
inflexible glass, mostly in mobile phones and televisions. The key development,
said Helliwell, would be flexible OLEDs, which would allow the creation of
screens suitable for an aeroplane. Electronics company LG recently posted a
video of an 18-inch (46cm) screen which bends and contorts while the images on
screen are broadcast uninterrupted.
“What would be great would be to make devices based on OLEDs
that are flexible. We can make transistors that are flexible but if we can make
OLEDs that are flexible, that gives us a lot of potential in the market because
we can print OLEDs on to packaging, we can create flexible displays,” he said.
The CPI is one of seven bodies under the High Value
Manufacturing Catapult, an umbrella group which receives government funding to
drive growth in manufacturing. Part of the way the CPI operates is to identify
challenges in industry – such as the windowless plane – and develop ways to
overcome them, according to Helliwell.
Using £35m worth of advanced equipment in its Sedgefield
facility, the CPI says it working on technologies to advance flexible OLEDs and
tackle problems of cost and durability.
This could lead to the development of the OLEDs and the
windowless plane, but could also be used in “smart packaging” for medicines or
food which would contain information that could be displayed on a mobile phone.
One of the first steps in developing OLEDs is a mask which
helps treat eye disease among people with diabetes. The device from
PolyPhotonix, which was developed at the CPI, aims to stop the breakdown of
blood vessels during sleep as a result of the disease. Using the device, the
eye is fooled into thinking that it is daytime, when there is not the same
problem with blood vessel breakdown.
The concept for the plane, said Helliwell – letting
passengers see outside while allowing a lighter fuselage – followed discussions
with the aerospace industry. The idea of having the displays lining the inside
of the plane could become reality in 10 years, after other “building blocks” in
the development of OLED are completed, he added. “We are talking about it now
because it matches the kind of development timelines that they have in the
aerospace industry.
“So you could have a display next to a seat if you wanted
it; you could have a blank area next to a seat if you wanted it; you would have
complete flexibility as to where you put [the panel screens]. You could put screens
on the back of the seats in the middle and link them to the same cameras.”
