First Fruits of SES akteLUX partnership

SES signed a joint marketing agreement with akteLUX Technologies of Canada in March 2004. Under this agreement both companies agreed to market each others products and technologies into their respective core markets of the UK and North America.

akteLUX provide a specialist range of Electro Luminescent (EL) and Liquid Crystal Display panels that when used in an appropriate system provide exceptional visual and environmental performance for use in aerospace applications. SES will be adding the akteLUX 3ATI, QVGA and 4” by 8” displays into the portfolio of display products offered by SES.

SES will also be working closely with akteLUX to share technology between each others products, and the first example of the success of this collaboration was seen in the recent lighting trials held with BAE SYSTEMS for the Harrier GR9 pilot instrumentation display, which is based upon the SES RCDU-G product.

Using akteLUX expertise with EL panels, SES were able to double the light output from the RCDU-G, whilst also dramatically improving achieved contrast for viewing in direct sunlight. The SES RCDU-G has now been verified on the BAE SYSTEMS lighting rig as achieving the extremely challenging requirement of readability in direct sunlight. This corresponds to Dusk, Sun Forward and Sun Rear lighting conditions, which are the most extreme lighting levels applied to a "bubble" style cockpit.

SES and akteLUX are working together on a number of other display initiatives and plan to jointly offer LCD and OLED based displays as the technologies reach an appropriate state of maturity.