Project brief
Electronics and software design for a 10.4" WSVGA touchscreen Multi-Function Display for glass cockpit retrofit. The display supports primary flight display (synthetic vision terrain-enhanced), moving map navigation with Jeppesen chart overlay, engine instrument monitoring with trend indicators, checklist management, and weather radar/NEXRAD overlay pages, all rendered at 60fps using OpenGL ES 2.0 on an NXP i.MX8 processor.
The record covers display electronics and software integration and remains marked as ongoing. Explanatory page architecture should not be mistaken for an actual application screenshot.
The engineering challenge
Present navigation, flight, engine, and weather information through a consistent embedded display architecture.
Engineering approach
- Organize incoming avionics data around dedicated display pages.
- Render maps and flight symbology using the stated graphics stack.
- Connect touch interaction, checklist logic, and data updates through page state management.
Features & capabilities
- PFD page: attitude, airspeed, altitude, VSI, heading with synthetic vision terrain
- Moving map: Jeppesen chart display with aircraft position, track, and TFR overlays
- Engine page: EGT/CHT, fuel flow, manifold pressure, RPM with trend bars
- Checklist management with auto-completion from avionics bus data
- Weather radar overlay with NEXRAD and XM WX weather data
- Touchscreen gesture support: pinch-zoom, pan, tap on map
- DO-160G environmental qualification (temperature, vibration, EMC, altitude)
- OpenGL ES 2.0 60fps rendering with anti-aliased vector graphics
Software & engineering tools
NXP i.MX8M Plus (Cortex-A53 + M7), Vivante GC7000Lite GPU, OpenGL ES 2.0, ARINC 429/664, Linux BSP, QNX RTOS option