Airborne Surveillance monitor – 10.4” TFT+ PCAP Touchpanel

Request

Our customer was developing a new airborne surveillance monitor which was heavily based on an existing design.  They were keen however to move away from their existing resistive touch (single point) interface and move to the latest projected capacitive technology which would provide improved accuracy and multi-touch gesture control.

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The nature of application gave rise to many problems which could not be solved with an off the shelf solution.  These included

• Need for a high brightness display (600 cd/m²)
• Operation with thick NBC gloves
• Optical bonding, for daylight readability and to prevent moisture/condensation ingress in extreme weather conditions
• Custom glass with anti-reflective coating specially designed for backward compatibility with older designs
• Operating temperature -40°C to + 70°C

Our close relationship with Futurelabs meant that we could tailor a solution which met the precise needs of the customer

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  10.4 PCAP Touch Panel

  Construction: Glass/Film/Film (GFF)
  Number of fingers: 10
  Cover lens: up to 10mm
  Signal to Noise ratio: 32V

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Result

Given the customers tough requirements we had to start with a PCAP panel which had a very high signal to noise ratio.  This gave us the option to provide a solution which worked with avionic gloves and also with a water soaked screen.  The firmware for the touch panel has now been finely tuned to provide the following features:

• Customer defined points of touch
• Water rejection (No ghost touch)
• Water operation (Single point – Automatic)
• Frequency hopping (Minimal interference with customer electronics)
• Glove touch (NBC Avionic)

In addition to the technical requirements we have also met the customers commercial, delivery and quality requirements (AS9100 )