Universal Avionics provides vision

The avionics supplier looks to improve pilot situational awareness of surrounding terrain with its new synthetic-vision technology.

A new artificial window technology, called Vision 1, has been developed by Universal Avionics Systems Corp. The synthetic-vision system takes situational awareness (SA) advances from terrain awareness warning systems (TAWS) to a new level by generating real-time terrain depictions on primary flight displays, along with additional 3-D position, flight plan, and trend vector depictions, enhancing safety and reducing controlled-flight-into-terrain accidents.

Early TAWS used advances in computer processing, graphics, displays, and solid-state memory technologies coupled with availability of worldwide digital terrain databases to produce SA terrain depictions on weather radar displays. More recently, real-time map and profile terrain depictions have been incorporated into TAWS to further enhance SA.