Part 1: Seeing is Believing

This is the first of several articles on visual display market developments for defense training organizations. This initial article’s focus is the quick-paced activities in the projector sector. The insights for this article were provided following my spent with the teams of Norxe and JVC at recent conferences, which included viewing their products. These two representative suppliers provided insights for the broader simulation and training community on the trends and challenges of customer requirements, technology advancements, a focus on improving a product’s life-cycle and their portfolio innovations.

Technology Advancements

The author gained perspectives from Sondre Fauskanger, Senior Product Manager at Norxe, while he had a number of competing activities, including preparing for this month’s IT2EC.

The executive provided insights on a number of technology developments in this sector including the important notion of eye-limiting resolution (ELR), when display resolutions approach the limits of human perception. ELRs for training requirement vary according to the supported military weapons platform – helicopter and fixed- and rotary-wing, or those in the ground and other domains.

Fauskanger noted he is observing some programs increasingly driving the need for ever higher resolution as technology and affordability evolve to the customers’ favor. “In order to meet these resolution requirements, that demands a lot of IG-processing power and projectors that are capable of driving all these pixels. Up until now this has technically been very difficult or very expensive. We are now at the point where eye-limiting resolution becomes more reachable and within budget. And it is always about budget – how much ‘bang’ you can get for the buck.”

ELR will remain a future editorial focal point for MS&T and with good reasons. In one instance, more military services are adding fifth-generation fast-jets to their orders of battle. At the same time, they are investing in more capable training aircraft that raise the bar for these aspiring aviators to train as they will operate – creating the insatiable demand to add more pixels, and by extension, higher resolution to this community’s synthetic training environment scenarios.

Another technology trend in this market is the effort to increase refresh rate, or fast frame rates, in IGs supporting scenario scenery. Whereas the legacy-era starting point of refresh rate has often been 60Hz for training and rehearsal events, that standard is increasing to 120Hz. Fauskanger observed IGs are catching up to the 120Hz benchmark. “This gives a much better dynamic resolution because you don’t need a lot of ‘cheating,’ whereby you are throwing away a lot of brightness and introducing artifacts to emulate 120Hz output from a 60Hz-rated IG.” Indeed, the executive pointed out 120Hz is becoming the next standard, “especially for defense as they are seeking to get these features into requirements.” In a glimpse at an adjacent sector, he also observed, “The civil [aviation] sector is behind this, as their training organizations typically want capable, but less expensive materiel to meet training requirements, especially for full-flight simulators. They simply don’t have the operational requirements – target recognition, orientation and identification – that defense has.”

Of no surprise, there were even more “cross-pollination” use cases for fast frame rates generated from this discussion. While he previously touched on civil aviation, there are also requirements from the automotive racing community for advanced, precise training events. In this instance, the community’s drivers need to be supported by training scenarios with higher refresh rates on the order of an attention-getting 240Hz.

Norxe has also heard the persistent demand signal for more robust IR capabilities in synthetic military training events. To that end, the company has built in a dedicated IR light source in all of its products. The executive said, this capability provides the ability to independently adjust the out-the-window or visual display, and the IR light source for NVG stimulation, further guaranteeing high performance over time in multi-channel visual display systems.

This February, the author also had the opportunity to continue his discussions on this market with Ian Scott, Vice President of the Visual Systems Division at JVCKENWOOD USA Corporation, following their meet-up in the latter part of 2024 at EATS and I/ITSEC.

The JVC executive first highlighted the major demands he is observing from current and prospective customers and his company’s responses.

Scott initially noted with an increased focus on night-time training, ever-greater native contrast and exceptional IR modes for NVGs are very much in demand. To that point, JVC’s proprietary D-ILA technology allows the company to offer projection systems with native contrast performance which was said to be ten times more than that of competing technologies. “This means that nighttime scenes are presented realistically, with deep blacks rather than a grey fog. We have also increased the breadth of models that we offer with built-in independent IR illuminators and inputs, allowing for greater flexibility and control of NVG training scenarios.” The executive added, “Further, with extensive feedback from a large ongoing military program we have continued to advance and refine our capabilities in this respect.”

JVC is also responding to the clarion call for ever-greater resolution being demanded – with the aim of eye-limiting visual fidelity. To meet that requirement, JVC introduced 4K Native D-ILA devices for military simulation with its SH7 model back in 2010 – more than a decade before DLP devices were introduced. “This model, truly a reliable workhorse, has provided constant and reliable training since then for many F-15, F-16, F-18 and F-22 programs ever since, and is still being shipped to this day,” Scott said and noted JVC then introduced the first 8K “e-shift” projectors in 2013. Fast forward to 2025, with the executive observed has JVC delivering “the world’s first 8K native projectors on a large and notable US Air Force program, which contains ‘the most advanced visual display systems ever fielded in a simulator (https://www.boeing.com/defense/t-7a#training)...’”

And then there are built-in functionalities JVC brings to bear, including its Auto-Intensity mode, to ensure that its projectors can work day-in, day-out, without the need for labor-intensive calibration or attendance from technicians. “Whilst projector illumination modules are by their nature of finite lifetimes, from thousands of fielded units monitored, we see average intervals between laser model replacements of well over 30,000 hours operation. Our long experience in the simulation sector and our close collaboration with key integrators and customers has allowed us to constantly learn, innovate, and improve, ensuring that the philosophy of ‘kaizen’ is truly end-to-end within our projector business,” the executive added.

More Robust Life Cycle

Norxe is also expanding their projectors’ capabilities through the articles’ life cycles. The supplier’s secret sauce for providing its customers with sound investments includes the built-in light sensors that measure the brightness performance over time to allow for constant light output (CLO). “Typically, by dimming the light source down 15-20% allows you to gain about 47,000 to 75,000 hours (15% dimming gives 47,000 hours and 20% dimming gives 75,000 hours) of light source budget. Our internal sensors will automatically increase the brightness over time so you don’t have to use all the brightness and you are free to use the budget over time. This gives a predictable linear performance of the training device year-after-year.” Another metric on Norxe’s efforts to strengthen of its products’ life cycle includes the first maintenance on its pixel-shift technology being completed at 50,000 hours. “This and other requirements make these products – I can’t say ‘no maintenance’ – but low maintenance,” he emphasized.

Norxe is all in on another emerging technology thrust – cyber security, being driven by defense departments and top-level integrators around the globe. To point, the company has obtained Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) compliance, both for Norxe as an organization and its products. Norxe was certified in 2023 for ISO/IEC 27001 (management of information security).

The company’s ecosystem for its products is also expanding. Norxe works close with several key suppliers to ensure the quality and performance of its products. For example, all of the P-series projectors are based on the Texas Instruments(TI) DLP imaging device, and Norxe only uses the highest graded devices (performance, lifetime, resolution and image quality) in its P-series. “Equally important as working close with suppliers is our strategic cooperation with other technology providers, like IG suppliers. This is the best way to ensure that we continue to develop features and performance that brings the technology to the next level, ensures innovation and products that provide what the defense customers need to secure training today and tomorrow,” the executive concluded.

JVC is also responding to the building bow-wave of demand for increased efficiencies across system and product life cycles.

JVCs has been providing projectors for military and civil flight simulation applications for decades, with more than 10,000 projectors supplied to these sectors. The company is using this extensive experience to continually address its customers’ demands relating to lifetime and total cost of ownership.

Scott emphasized JVC fully understands that a flight simulator may be in use for the full life of the airframe in question, usually well beyond 20 years. “This means that within the life of the simulator it is likely that a ‘technology refresh,’ including updating the projector with latest technology, will be required,” he explained and continued, “JVC continues to take this into consideration with our product development, meaning that new models introduced, to the greatest extent possible, will be a form-fit-functional replacement for previous models, with the minimum possible modifications needed to replace older models.”

In another interesting segment of its products’ life cycle, JVC has established a sourcing model that offers benefits to the company’s collaborative partners and customers in the simulator market. The foundation of the strategy is the core articles, the D-ILA LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) devices themselves, are produced by JVC, not sourced from an outside provider. Scott pointed out this means that JVC is in full control of the availability of this vital component. “We are thus not at the mercy of an outside supplier who may make sudden changes to design or availability, meaning that we can produce a product for as long as a customer demands.”

2025 and Beyond

Norxe’s portfolio is expanding to help meet, and even exceed, ELRs in training environments. The Norway-based company now fields 8K products for its P55 and P60 projectors and is partnering with visual display companies that provide eye-limiting resolution domes – a complete visual display solution – as this author viewed at 2024 I/ITSEC. “Those domes were at 2 arc minutes for better resolution,” the executive recalled and added, “And now that we have the 8K products we don’t see this as a ‘requirement.’ We see then, products as ‘high interest’ from IG vendors and large Tier 1 and -2 integrators who are interested in offering eye-limiting resolution systems as an option in their portfolios.”

Through 2025 JVC will continue to ship many of its core products into ongoing fast-jet, collimated and rotorcraft military programs via its key industry partners, Boeing, FlightSafety, and CAE USA. Scott explained the most popular models for these ongoing programs are VS45NV-HB, VS3000, VS4550, VS4010 and VS8000. He significantly concluded, “Our forthcoming model, VS2600, the world’s smallest and lightest 4K Native simulator projector is on schedule to start mass production by September this year, and is already selected for a number of major commercial airlines. Whilst this new model is included in a number of military program proposals, it is too early to yet confirm these.”