Signal Lamp Development for Minor Aids to Navigation

Abstract

This report documents the research and development effort conducted to find an alternative light source to the standard tungsten filament incandescent lamp used on most minor aids to navigation. The goal was a lamp that directly emitted the required color light, with reduced maintenance, and improved reliability. The study evaluated a number of arc lamp technologies including: metal vapor, cold and heated salts, amalgams, and mercury pool lamps. While the effort failed to find a single lamp technology to provide all signal colors used in the navigation system, a liquid electrode (LE)/Argon (Ar) green lamp was developed and tested, and significant advances were made in the development of a neon discharge lamp which emitted a red color.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1996
Accession Number
ADA331639

Entities

People

  • Joseph P. Sargent Jr

Organizations

  • United States Coast Guard Research & Development Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Chemical Synthesis
  • Chemistry
  • Circuit Boards
  • Detectors
  • Electric Terminals
  • Light Sources
  • Materials Processing
  • Materials Science
  • Measurement
  • Navigational Aids
  • Optical Properties
  • Optics
  • Sodium Compounds
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Test Methods
  • Visible Spectra
  • Waveforms

Readers

  • Electrical Engineering
  • Plasma Physics.
  • Vision Science/Vision Psychology/Cognitive Neuroscience.