Flight deck innovation
Emerging autonomy, cloud workflows, synthetic vision, and AI.
With a lineage that can be traced back to the earliest aircraft radio communication systems and gyroscope stabilizers, today’s avionics systems are highly sophisticated, and include the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to enable fully autonomous flight operations and real-time pilot decision support through sensor-fused augmented reality displays.
Indeed, modern avionics merge vast amounts of data from radar, sensors, and GPS — and do so seamlessly — to achieve previously unimaginable levels of flight safety and efficiency.
This article presents some exciting recent innovations in avionics offered by Collins, Garmin, Honeywell, and Universal Avionics. It also includes advanced avionics suites customized by business aircraft OEMs to achieve optimal functionality in particular platforms.
Honeywell
Honeywell Anthem is a comprehensive, next-generation, cloud-native integrated flight deck that is highly customizable, connected, and intuitive. Anthem is both advanced and multifunctional. It reduces pilot workload, enhances situational awareness (SA), increases safety, and improves operational efficiency.
Connectivity is a key aspect of the platform, including “always-on” secure cloud connectivity for real-time data transfer (maintenance status, weather, and traffic), support of remote flight planning, and app integration.
It can be accessed from anywhere using portable electronic devices (PEDs). Its design is also scalable, customizable, and modular. The architecture can fit a wide range of aircraft, and pilots can arrange displays and tools as needed, such as maps, radios, and flight data.
Anthem also includes innovative gesture-based controls that minimize the number of touches or clicks required for key tasks. Anthem’s Connected Mission Manager provides a simplified, time-based view of the entire flight and anticipates upcoming tasks, such as the next logical radio frequency to tune to or the appropriate checklist to display.
Anthem is also replete with robust safety and SA functions, such as 3D airport moving maps and taxi assist, which provide visual guidance lines and deceleration cues for ground operations.
A state-of-the-art synthetic vision system (SVS) offers a crystal-clear, track-based 3D visualization of the outside world to enhance terrain and obstacle awareness. And the Runway Overrun Awareness and Alerting System (ROAAS) and 3D ROAAS are innovative in that they calculate the aircraft’s stopping point based on kinetic energy sensors. Also included is an automatic upset recovery function that can return the aircraft to level flight. Anthem also contains robust cybersecurity protocols and a secure cockpit browser.
Collins Aerospace
Pro Line Fusion is the most recent integrated avionics system developed by Collins. It offers a comprehensive glass cockpit that presents critical flight, navigation, and weather information on large, high-resolution liquid crystal displays (LCDs).
Its software-centric approach makes it fully scalable, and it’s designed to meet next-generation airspace requirements.
Its adaptive, intuitive interface includes primary flight displays (PFDs), advanced graphics, configurable windows, and point-and-click/touchscreen modalities.
The system provides advanced SA through high-resolution SVS that includes an “airport dome” and extended runway centerlines, as well as highly detailed, graphical flight planning.
Collins FlightAware Foresight is an innovative AI-powered predictive analytics platform that applies machine learning to huge datasets to anticipate flight disruptions accurately, such as those caused by weather and congestion, and to optimize operations in ways that improve on-time performance.
It blends real-time flight tracking with historical data and external factors to generate actionable insights for proactive adjustments in, for example, scheduling, gate assignments, and crew management, thus moving beyond simple prediction to intelligent intervention.
The system processes billions of data points through machine learning and AI, integrates inputs continuously from more than 50 critical data sources, such as flight status, weather, traffic, and airports, and turns this complex information into clear alerts that support quick, optimal decision-making. It also integrates with a range of existing Collins products.
Universal Avionics
ClearVision from Universal Avionics integrates SVS with enhanced flight vision systems (EFVS) to provide 3D terrain and obstacle views with real-world sensor data in single seamless images that can be shown on head-up displays (HUDs) and head-wearable displays (HWDs), such as the lightweight SkyLens and the helmet-mounted SkyVis.
It blends seamlessly a computer-generated world with infrared and other sensor-derived views to offer pilots a real-time, crystal-clear picture of terrain, runways, obstacles, and navigation data, even in low visibility.
Universal’s Connected Avionics Ecosystem is a cyber-secure, cloud-based suite of hardware and software that connects an aircraft’s avionics – particularly its flight management system (FMS) – with PEDs, ground operations, maintenance teams, and third-party applications. Its use enables operators to achieve smarter flight planning, secure data exchange, and performance analysis.
At the core of the ecosystem is a connected FMS that supports secure, 2-way data exchange between the aircraft and external applications.
“The connected FMS delivers pilot workflow improvements based on 2-way flight plan sharing and continuous weather and flight performance data exchanges in all phases of flight,” says Universal Avionics CEO Dror Yahav.
The pilot-facing element is FlightPartner – an electronic flight bag (EFB) application for tablets that streamlines flight planning and data entry through 2-way flight plan synchronization.
The ecosystem’s cloud infrastructure is also robust and secure, and supports interoperability with related third-party applications and services.
Garmin
G5000 PRIME is Garmin’s next-generation touch-driven integrated flight deck. It offers advanced processing power, fully integrated touchscreens, and high levels of automation. The platform constitutes a major performance increase, with twice the CPU processing power, 4 times the memory, and up to 100 times faster system connectivity than previous generations.
According to Garmin VP of Aviation Sales, Marketing, Programs, and Support Carl Wolf, “The G5000 PRIME avionics suite includes deeper systems integration and advanced automation and connectivity features that reduce crew workload and streamline workflow in the cockpit.”
Also featured are gigabit connectivity and rapid refresh, presented through expansive, edge-to-edge multi-touch glass.
The user experience is both modern and intuitive, reducing reliance on physical buttons, with quick-access bars for items such as charts and weather. Workload reduction tools are also included, such as graphical flight plan editing and smart features like a one-tap emergency return.
Safety and automation are also central aspects of the G5000 PRIME, with integration of Autoland, Runway Occupancy Awareness (ROA), Safety Glide, and Autothrottle.
Regarding crew workflow, G5000 PRIME employs a crew-centered design with context-sensitive layouts and alerts, enhanced FMS tools, such as a modified flight plan feature – which enables side-by-side graphical comparisons of flight plan changes – and operational efficiency functions that integrate aircraft performance, takeoff and landing data, and load planning applications.
Garmin Autonomí is a comprehensive suite of cutting-edge, autonomous, safety-enhancing flight technologies for general and business aviation aircraft. Specifically, it reduces pilot workload greatly, prevents accidents, and improves efficiency by providing automated assistance and, in an emergency, taking over flight control and landing the aircraft without human intervention.
The suite consists primarily of Autoland, and is complemented by Emergency Descent Mode (EDM) and Electronic Stability and Protection (ESP). Autoland integrates with Garmin flight decks, and includes autothrottle, an advanced autopilot, sensors, terrain and weather databases, GPS, and integrated flight deck displays.
Once activated, Autoland makes intelligent decisions by evaluating weather, terrain, aircraft performance, runway length, distance, fuel range, and runway choice to select the best airport and runway. It then communicates its emergency status and intentions to air traffic control, and completes a full landing that includes automatic braking for runway stopping and engine shutdown.
EDM lowers the aircraft to a safe altitude automatically in emergencies that require a rapid, safe descent, such as a cabin depressurization. It achieves this by monitoring the pressurization system and using autopilot capabilities to initiate a controlled descent while managing airspeed and heading.
ESP, meanwhile, helps keep the aircraft within safe flight parameters, controlling pitch, roll, and speed by applying gentle corrective forces and providing alerts to prevent stalls, overspeeds, and steep turns. Pilot override is always available.
Same core, different cockpits
Many business jet manufacturers also create their own flight decks by customizing and branding commercially available avionics suites. They partner closely with major avionics suppliers and then apply their own branding and custom software layers to best fit their particular aircraft. This is done to ensure seamless integration between the avionics and the specific airframe and its systems, maintain control over upgrades, certification, and support for new features and updates, and meet specific flight requirements.
For example, Gulfstream and Dassault use the core Honeywell Primus Epic architecture and apply significant customization to create unique suites with specified interfaces, hardware, and functionality. Gulfstream’s PlaneView II (for models including G650 and G650ER) is a heavily customized Primus Epic implementation, and includes enhancements for better SA, tailored SVS, and autopilot features.
Similarly, Dassault’s Enhanced Avionics System (EASy), including EASy II, EASy III, and EASy IV for the Falcon 7X, 8X, 900EX, and 2000EX is a Primus Epic-based suite that includes heavily customized interfaces, large screens arranged in a “T” shape, and trackball cursor control.
In addition, the flight decks of Embraer’s Legacy 450/500 and Praetor 500/600 are modified Collins Pro Line Fusion avionics systems. Included are certain interface refinements that support single-pilot operations, and specific onboard Wi-Fi and cellular systems for automated database management.
Garmin-based flight decks are also integrated and customized frequently by aircraft manufacturers to create tailored “best-fit” glass cockpits that leverage Garmin’s G5000 PRIME system. For instance, certain Cessna Citation models, such as the XLS, XLS+, Latitude, and Longitude use the Garmin G5000 and customize it through more detailed engine monitoring, integration with specific performance databases, and tailoring of FMS and autopilot logic. Bombardier Learjet 70/75/75 Liberty also use a modified Garmin G5000 system, branded as the Bombardier Vision Flight Deck, which includes customizations for vertical navigation, tailored performance calculation software, and specific touchscreen controllers.
The new age of integrated avionics
Today’s avionics have evolved from basic airborne radios and vacuum- and gyroscopic-operated instruments to highly sophisticated integrated flight decks, information-rich SVS overlays, AI-supported decision tools, and safe, autonomous navigation and landing.
The systems presented here by industry-leading OEMs represent the current state of the art in avionics. Looking forward, it is certain that the rate of innovation in connectivity, automation, computing power, and advanced vision will continue to speed up. The great promise of integrated avionics is both straightforward and assured – a cockpit that helps pilots fly with full clarity and confidence, and with every flight finishing precisely as it should: safely, smoothly, and on plan.
Jake Carpenter has been a writer and editor for more than 20 years. He has a BA from UCLA. Highlights of his work include The Economist, the RAND Corporation, National Institutes of Health, and with a Nobel Prize winner in medicine. He has written articles on avionics for Pro Pilot for more than a year.