A Field Visibility Comparison between Electroluminescent Sources and Standard U.S. Coast Guard Incandescent Aids-to-Navigation Sources.

Abstract

The U.S. Coast Guard has traditionally relied on incandescent sources for lighted aids-to-navigation. However, incandescent sources suffer from scintillation, halo effects, catastrophic failure, and other problems. Electroluminescence(EL) may offer some advantages in overcoming these difficulties. From approximately 1.3 miles distant, sixteen observers made simultaneous brightness comparisons between EL and selected standard incandescent aids-to-navigation sources for both red and green colors. In addition, a test was conducted to determine if any of several spatial arrangements of EL panels were perceived as brighter. Green EL sources seemed to perform better than predicted, consistently brighter than their incandescent counterparts. The spatial arrangement test indicated that no statistically discernable difference existed in perceived EL brightness in any of the tested panel arrangements.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 1982
Accession Number
ADA125575

Entities

People

  • John Richard Thacker

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Brightness
  • Coast Guard
  • Detectors
  • Electro-Optics
  • Electroluminescence
  • Engineering
  • Light Sources
  • Luminescence
  • Measurement
  • Navigation
  • North America
  • Optical Phenomena
  • Optical Properties
  • Optics
  • Psychology
  • Standards
  • United States

Readers

  • Astronomy/Astrophysics
  • Maritime Security/Maritime Homeland Security
  • Systems Analysis and Design