A San Francisco based technology firm, Osterhout Design Group released the prototype for a new smart glass that will allow aircrafts pilots to land safely in case of emergency when the cockpit is filled with smoke. Prototype of SAVED glasses. (Image via Osterhout Design Group)
Osterhout Design Group (ODG) is a technology company that is leading in the making of smart glasses since 1999. This year, the company presented the prototype for a new pair of smartglasses that could save the lives of passengers on flights during an emergency landing. Named SAVED, short for Smoke Assured Vision Enhanced Display, the glasses were designed in collaboration with FedEx Express, a branch of FedEx Corp. SAVED is unique because it provides better visibility to pilots in case of smoke in the cockpit, using a special heads-up display. In addition, SAVED will provide oxygen to pilots while protecting them against the smoke.
Osterhout Design Group is planning on promoting the underlining technology of the glasses to both civil and military plane manufacturing companies across the globe, revealing a market niche involving 39,000 planes and approximately 4 billion aircraft riders per year who need to be protected. However, is there really a demand for such products?
The numerous service difficulty reports from the FAA present in-flight smoke and fires as one of the top causes for unplanned emergency landings, at a rate of approximately one landing daily. But, the real danger lies in the fact that fires on a plane are only the fourth cause of serious damages to and on a plane. In regard to those statistics, every plane manufacturing company must be hunting for possible solutions to the problem. Even then, it might feel as if those companies just need to solve the problem from the engineering side of it, but ODG is offering a solution from an organic side of the problem.
When smoke appears in the control room, it is dangerous if the pilots can’t see the command buttons in front of them or the surroundings of the plane. However, with SAVED, as soon as smoke is detected, the glasses take over and connect to the heads-up display inside the cockpit as well as the cameras on the outside of the plane, to project to the pilots the information necessary to perform the landing without getting the smoke in their eyes. SAVED is a total package and companies which will acquire the technology will be killing multiple birds with one stone. They will be providing both better landing protocols and better safety protocols for their employees and the passengers.
Everyone will agree that clear visibility is crucial for anyone piloting a flying machine whether from inside or outside; so, it won’t come as a surprise that the CEO of ODG, Ralph Osterhout, considers the company’s new product a life-saving device. And, their partnership with FedEx Express, as SAVED’s first buyer, only reinforces such belief as FedEx Express’ Senior Vice President of Flight Operations expressed his enthusiasm about the project.
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