CSIO forays into niche optics field, works on smart head-up display for fifth-generation fighter aircraft

The Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO) is developing a next-generation smart Head-Up Display (HUD) for advanced fifth-generation fighter aircraft and beyond, which are expected to enter service in the coming years.

While developing this, CSIO is foraying into the domain of ‘waveguide technology’, which is an emerging field in India but is being actively pursued by some countries like Israel and the United Kingdom for military applications like the HUD.

Waveguide technology, according to scientists at CSIO, guides electromagnetic waves, such as radio waves or light, through a specific path with minimal loss. Both are used to direct energy from one point to another, such as a light source to a user’s eye in an augmented reality headset.

Such waves are used in high-power applications like radar systems, high resolution optical devices, augmented reality, broadcasting and even gadgets like microwave ovens, where they prevent energy from spreading beyond the stipulated requirements and minimise loss.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) — of which CSIO is a constituent laboratory — the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), and several niche industries are currently conducting research on waveguide technology.

Some industry research reports have pegged the Indian waveguide market at about $200 million, with the defence and aerospace sector topping the list of segments followed by the telecommunications sector. The global market is valued at approximately $1.5 billion.

The smart HUD under development will use a small digital display system, unlike the conventional cathode ray tube in the present generation of HUDs developed by CSIO that are being produced commercially for aircraft like the Tejas, SU-30, Jaguar and advanced jet trainer.

“We have given a pre-prototype demonstration of the HUD and its technology to the Air Force and the project is expected to be complete in about two years’ time,” Ashish Gaurav, senior principal scientist at CSIO, who is part of the project team said. “It will be about 30 per cent lighter than the present HUD and consume 50 per cent less power, besides having a sharper display,” he added.

Another new feature is that the HUD will not employ lenses to capture the display data but use glass plates. The lower physical profile of the HUD will also help in reducing its overall signature.

A critical gadget for combat aircraft, the HUD is an electro-optical instrument installed above the cockpit’s instrument panel. It superimposes vital flight parameters on the pilot’s vision of the outside world, giving him vital information like air speed, altitude, weapon status, rate of turn and angle of attack at a glance and without having him to peer down inside the cockpit, thus enabling him to fly with his “head up”.

The HUD was first developed indigenously by CSIO in 1998 and since then different variants for various aircraft have been brought out. These are being manufactured by the defence public sector undertaking Bharat Electronics Limited.