Avidyne Looks Forward to Pilot Eye, Vantage Projects

The update for Cirrus displays—and the first certified neural network—have kept the avionics manufacturer innovating.

Tuesday, July 26, 2022 at 12:04 PM ET

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The Vantage flight deck will upgrade Cirrus SR series airplanes originally equipped with Avidyne’s Entegra primary flight displays. [Courtesy: Avidyne]

Key Takeaways:

Avidyne addressed significant market challenges, including electronic component supply chain disruptions and avionics dealer stress from technician shortages, though these issues are reportedly easing.
The company released its IFD AViOS 10.3 software update, featuring optional certified TAWS and new visual approach capabilities.
Avidyne is actively developing "Pilot Eye," its first AI-powered neural network for traffic detection, in collaboration with the FAA and EASA to define certification processes for AI in avionics.
Development is underway for the Vantage flight deck, a dual 12-inch display system initially targeting Cirrus SR aircraft, with future expansion to other platforms planned.

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Avidyne’s Dan Schwinn has been flying a lot over the past couple of years, testing new equipment and features on various products created by the avionics manufacturer he founded in 1994. From his perch leading the company, Schwinn has observed the market forces at work in recent months, in terms of supply chain and ongoing pandemic woes, which he addressed in a press briefing at EAA AirVenture at Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

“Even the biggest avionics manufacturers are small consumers of electronic components,” said Schwinn, and what happened over the past year had a serious impact. “The very large users of silicone—primarily cell phones, and computers and so forth—ended up using a lot of it, all of the capacity that’s available. So smaller companies ended up not being able to get our allocations. We’re having to go find supply on the spot market for components.”