Barco extends its success in the civil avionics market with new Airbus deal
Barco's Onboard Maintenance Terminals and Terminal Processing Units selected for the Airbus A380 cockpit
KORTRIJK, BELGIUM, 20 April 2005 - Barco has won a multi-million euro follow-on contract from Sagem SA, Paris, France, for the delivery of Onboard Maintenance Terminals and Terminal Processing Units to be used on board the future Airbus A380 airliner. With the contract, Barco and Sagem reinforce their fruitful cooperation and extend their joint success story in the Airbus market. The new deal holds a potential business volume of 30 million Euros over the lifetime of the A380 program.
"This new contract represents another landmark for Barco in the civil aviation technology market", states BarcoView's President Luc Vandenbroucke. "We are very pleased that, thanks to this new deal, Barco will be present in every A380 cockpit with 5 different units", he continues.
Within the framework of the latest contract, Barco will develop and produce advanced Onboard Maintenance Terminals (OMT) and Terminal Processing Units (TPU) for the Airbus A380, the largest commercial airliner in the world. Last year, Barco also won the contract for the development of the aircraft's Onboard Information Terminals (OIT). Each A380 will contain 2 TPUs, 2 OITs and 1 OMT. These will be an important part of the aircraft's larger Network Server System (NSS), which is being developed by Sagem.
Barco's OMT is a sophisticated PC for the operational A380 environment. It allows the cockpit crew to use all normal PC functions and access maintenance applications that supervise the aircraft's avionics health status. Crewmembers can consult this information on a high-resolution 15" Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Display that performs excellently in a bright cockpit environment. Integrated into the cockpit design, the OMT takes up a limited amount of space.
The newly developed TPU is a powerful processing unit with an integrated general-purpose Pentium® class processor. The TPU provides an independent platform specifically developed to host airline specific applications, such as flight schedules, electronic mail, policy documents, general airline data, etc. All this information will be displayed on the bright 12" LCD display of the aircraft's Onboard Information Terminal, which provides optimal optical performance in terms of luminance, contrast and reflectivity. For optimum ease of use, the new TPU also shares its ergonomic operator desk with Barco's Onboard Information Terminal. The desk includes a custom-made keyboard and touch pad.
Earlier, Barco was also contracted to develop the advanced Onboard Information Terminal (OIT) for the Airbus A380. The OIT, combining a 12" LCD display with a user-friendly desk and additional input device (AID), will be used for online consultation of maintenance manuals, security procedures, back-up applications and other vital information.
About Barco
Barco, an international company headquartered in Kortrijk, Belgium, provides visualization and display solutions for professional markets. Barco designs and develops solutions for large screen visualization, display solutions for life-critical applications, and systems for visual inspection. Barco is active worldwide and has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Barco is quoted on Euronext Brussels and is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company (Euronext: BAR; Reuters: BARBt.BR; Bloomberg: BAR BB).
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