CASE STUDY
Air Traffic Control Tower
How a Unified, Mission-Critical HMI Solution Achieved Zero-Downtime Reliability and a 20-Year Lifecycle Guarantee.
A global-leading Tier-1 provider of mission-critical Air Traffic Management (ATM) and surveillance systems. Their technology is the operational backbone for over 60 of the world’s busiest air navigation service providers (ANSPs), including government and civil aviation authorities, trusted to manage millions of flights safely every year.
Custom ATCO Touch-Screen HMI (21.5”)
Calibrated 24" 4K Rack-Mount Displays
Redundant Power/Video & Failsafe Controller
20-Year "Frozen BOM" Lifecycle Guarantee
100% brightness & color uniformity across all towers.
The Challenge
For their new “Horizon” ATM platform, [Customer Brand Name] was designing the next-generation Air Traffic Controller (ATCO) workstation and the core data system. This system had a zero-failure tolerance. They faced three critical challenges:
Catastrophic Reliability Demands:
The system required 24/7/365, “five-nines” (99.999%) uptime. A lagging touch input or a failed display is not an option—it is a critical safety incident.
Component Obsolescence Crisis:
Their previous supplier, a consumer-grade manufacturer, issued an “End-of-Life” (EOL) notice for the 2K display panel used in their radar systems. This threatened a multi-million dollar re-engineering and re-certification process for a platform with a 20-year service life requirement.
Fragmented Supply Chain:
They were forced to source their controller touch-screen HMIs from one vendor and their data-processing rack-mount displays from another, leading to integration conflicts, driver incompatibility, and inconsistent visual performance (color/brightness).
They needed a single, long-term partner who could engineer a unified, zero-failure HMI solution and contractually guarantee its availability for decades.
Project Highlights
HMI Lag & False Touches
SOLUTION: Custom 21.5″ PCAP Touch Display HMI
OUTCOME: <2ms response time; zero false touches in 500,000+ hours
Inconsistent Radar/Data
SOLUTION: Calibrated 24″ 4K Rack-Mount Displays
OUTCOME: 100% brightness & color uniformity across all towers
20-Year Component EOL Risk
SOLUTION: 20-Year “Frozen BOM” Lifecycle Guarantee
OUTCOME: Total supply chain security; re-certification risk eliminated
24/7/365 Reliability
SOLUTION: Redundant Power/Video & Failsafe Controller
OUTCOME: Zero in-field failures since program launch (36 months)
Our Solutions + Services
The customer selected Logic Technologies as the exclusive display partner for the Horizon platform. We provided a complete, unified HMI ecosystem, not just components.
Custom ATCO Touch-Screen HMI (21.5”)
We engineered a 21.5” 2K Projected Capacitive (PCAP) touch display for the controller’s main interface. The high-speed controller was co-developed with [Customer Brand Name]’s software team to ensure instantaneous, precise touch response for critical vectoring commands. The unit features redundant power and video inputs for failsafe operation.
Calibrated Radar/Data Displays (24” 4K Rack-Mount)
For the core data visualization, we supplied 24” 4K displays in a standard 19-inch rack-mount chassis. Critically, every single display is individually factory-calibrated to a specific brightness, gamma, and color profile, ensuring that every controller at every workstation sees the exact same, consistent image.
20-Year "Frozen BOM" Lifecycle Guarantee
This was the cornerstone of our partnership. We contractually guaranteed that the Bill of Materials (BOM)—from the specific LCD panel to the controller IC—is “frozen.” This guarantees [Customer Brand Name] can procure the exact same displays, with zero changes, for the 20-year life of their program, completely eliminating their EOL and re-certification risk.
The Final Outcome
By partnering with us, the customer successfully deployed their Horizon platform to their first three national aviation authorities, on time and with unprecedented reliability.
Achieved “Zero-Failure” Reliability:
The 20-Year Lifecycle Guarantee has provided [Customer Brand Name] with absolute supply chain stability. This has saved them an estimated $12-15 million in future re-engineering and re-certification costs that would have been triggered by their previous supplier’s EOL notices.
Total Program Security & Cost Avoidance:
The new washer line received top marks from consumer reports and tech reviewers, who specifically highlighted the “easy-to-use, smartphone-fast” touch screen that “actually works when your hands are wet.”
Enhanced Controller Performance:
ATCOs reported the new HMI was “the most responsive and precise” system they had ever used. The zero-lag touch interface and perfectly uniform 4K radar displays have been directly linked to a reduction in operator error and improved situational awareness.
From Our Customer
“In air traffic control, there is no such thing as ‘downtime’—it’s a concept that doesn’t exist. Logic Technologies was the only partner who truly understood this. They engineered a unified, zero-failure solution and, more importantly, contractually guaranteed it for 20 years. They didn’t just sell us a display; they secured our entire program.”
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