Kopin Receives Orders Worth $1.8M for Fighter Jet HMDs

Kopin Corp. Inc. has received follow-on production orders worth $1.8 million from Rockwell Collins Inc. for high-brightness LCD SXGA displays for helmet-mounted display (HMDs) worn by F-35 fighter pilots.

The SXGA displays are based on the company's new 8-in. wafer process and NanoJet technology. The orders are to be fulfilled over the next 15 months.

F-35 HMDs provide pilots with airspeed, heading, altitude, targeting information and warnings projected on helmet visors, rather than on a traditional head-up display. This approach greatly reduces the pilot’s workload and increases responsiveness, according to Kopin.

The F-35’s Distributed Aperture System (DAS) streams real-time imagery from six IR cameras mounted around the aircraft, allowing pilots to “look through” the airframe.

Kopin’s technology portfolio includes ultrasmall displays, optics, speech enhancement technology, software, low-power application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and ergonomically designed headset computing systems.